The Five Best Arguments Against Sharia in the United States

3. Many aspects of Sharia are flagrantly unconstitutional.

Any number of specific Sharia laws directly contradict or violate basic principles of the U.S. Constitution:

- Under Sharia’s rules of evidence, “Testimony from women is given only half the weight of men.” This violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, guaranteeing for all persons complete equality under the law.

- The punishment for theft under Sharia is “amputation of hands or feet, depending on the number of times it is committed.” This is a gross violation of the Eighth Amendment, which bans “cruel and unusual punishments” under U.S. law.

- In Sharia courts, “testimony from non-Muslims may be excluded altogether (if against a Muslim).” Furthermore, “Muslim women may only enter into marriage with Muslim men.” Such Sharia laws, as well as many others which elevate Muslims over non-Muslims, are in direct violation of the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and possibly Article VI of the Constitution.

- Sharia’s penalty for apostasy (rejecting Islam) is death, according to the vast majority of Islamic scholars and judges. Since apostasy could not, under the First Amendment, even be considered a crime under U.S. law, much less a capital crime, enforcing the death penalty for a “crime of conscience” violates the very spirit of the Constitution, not to mention the First, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth amendments.

The list could go on and on. Sharia has very specific rules and extremely harsh punishments against extra-marital sex, for ignoring various religious rituals, drinking alcohol, engaging in freedom of speech, and so on; all of these rules and punishments violate various aspects of the United States Constitution. Several other components of Sharia also clearly discriminate against non-Muslims in favor of Muslims, which also is unconstitutional.

Because it is not allowed under Islamic law to pick and choose certain parts of Sharia while ignoring or dismissing other parts which you may find inconvenient, and since some aspects of Sharia are self-evidently unconstitutional, then Sharia must be thrown out in toto as a viable legal system in the United States — exactly as the citizens of Oklahoma voted. What’s the problem here?

4. Sharia is fundamentally religious law, and should be inapplicable to U.S. criminal or civil law.

At its core, Sharia is religious law — the guidelines under which Muslims must live in order to follow Islam. As such, it is not comparable to nor could it be a replacement for the completely secular criminal and civil code of the United States.

I have no beef with religions having internal laws governing the recommended behavior of adherents, or stipulating the rules for excommunication, and so forth. But Sharia goes way beyond that. First of all, the punishments meted out for religious misdeeds under Sharia often overlap with American criminal law. For example, as noted above, the punishment for apostasy is usually the death penalty — a little more serious than just excommunication. And on the flip side, under Sharia there is no punishment for certain actions (such as wife-beating) which under US law are serious crimes. But religious law cannot trump criminal law in the United States — you don’t get carte blanche to do illegal actions (such as killing someone or beating your wife) simply because your religion tells you it’s OK. Once we open that Pandora’s Box, there’s no turning back.

We learned recently in a very vivid example that we cannot trust religious law to replace or undermine U.S. law. When the Catholic Church discovered in decades past that some of its priests had committed statutory rape and child molestation against underage children in the Church, in many cases the internal “punishment” meted out was simply a slap on the wrist, often nothing more than a transfer to a different parish. Under U.S. law, these priests had committed a serious crime; but the Catholic Church decided in most instances to not notify the secular authorities and instead to adjudicate the cases internally, and doled out “sentences” which were in direct violation of U.S. and state criminal codes. Most Americans found this outrageous and unacceptable when they found out about it; but if we were to allow Sharia to obtain in the U.S., then the exact same clash between religious law and secular law is certain to happen all over again. And the clash will almost certainly be much more severe, since the Catholic Church hid the crimes surreptitiously, and did so in violation of its own stated principles; but under Sharia the differences between Islamic and secular moral codes are clearly and openly spelled out, so the clashes between U.S. law and Sharia law will be innumerable and unapologetic.

Of course, as many have pointed out, Sharia is not merely religious law. Under Islam, there is no distinction between religious government and civil government. They are one and the same — or are at least supposed to be one and the same, which is why modern Islamic fundamentalists find the secular governments of Middle Eastern countries so intolerable. So how do we regard Sharia — as a replacement for U.S. civil and criminal law, or simply as internal religious guidelines for Muslims?

Either way, Sharia is unacceptable to be considered part of official U.S. law. If we regard Sharia as a secular legal system, then see point 3 above — it’s unconstitutional. Alternately, if we regard Sharia as purely internal religious law, then once again it is unconstitutional if followed to the exclusion of U.S. law, as shown here in point 4. So once again, it seems that the voters of Oklahoma got it right.

To address one final question which may arise: What if two people voluntarily enter into a contract based on non-US law, or voluntarily agree to have their civil dispute adjudicated by a Sharia court? That would be fine — if we can be assured that the agreement is voluntary. But the discriminatory and oppressive nature of Sharia means that one or more of the parties in any dispute may have been compelled by threats or social pressure to consent to Sharia jurisdiction under duress.

Say, in one example, that several U.S. Muslim businessmen agree to pool funds for an investment portfolio, on the mutual agreement that the investment be Sharia-compliant — i.e. not used to profit from any industry (like alcohol or gambling) which violated Islamic law. And then the manager in charge of the fund invests in various casino and liquor companies. Ooops. Would the other investors then have the right to withdraw from the fund with no penalties? Yes. In this type of case, “Sharia” could indeed play a role in a U.S. lawsuit, if it were to end up in court, because the Sharia-aspect of the agreement was purely internal, did not violate any U.S. laws, and was entered into voluntarily.

But consider our second example. In the CNN article linked above, the CAIR spokesman responsible for getting the Oklahoma law quashed gave this quote:

“What this amendment is going to do is officially disfavor and condemn the Muslim community as being a threat to Oklahoma,” Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR’s Oklahoma chapter and the lead plaintiff in the suit, said earlier this month. In addition, he said, the amendment would invalidate private documents, such as wills, that are written in compliance with Muslim law.

This is an absurd, obviously untrue claim. In your will, you can leave your assets to anyone, for any reason. You can cite Muslim law, or your personal conscience, or a dream you once had, or baseless paranoia, or no reason whatsoever to leave all your assets to your children, or your cat, or the Flat Earth Society, or even leave instructions to have it all buried with you in your casket. If the will is determined to be a valid will, no ban on Sharia will be able to challenge it.

If, however, you die intestate (without a will), then the ban on Sharia could indeed come into play — as well it should. Sharia openly discriminates against females in inheritance law: “The rules of inheritance under Sharia law are intricate, and a female’s portion is generally half the amount a male would receive under the same circumstances.” So envision an example in which a wealthy Muslim man dies intestate, and the family ends up in an Oklahoma court in a dispute over his inheritance. Now imagine that the new Oklahoma law is not in effect, and lawyers petition the state court to have the case instead heard in a Sharia court. The judge may likely consent, provided all the disputants agree to the venue change. Now imagine that there are three overbearing sons who want Dad’s money, and one cowering daughter who has been threatened by them. When asked by the judge if she consents to Sharia justice in this case, will she have the bravado to stand up in court and say “No!”? Not likely. She’ll meekly assent, as have countless Muslim women for centuries. And she’ll wind up in Sharia court, where the Muslim jurist will naturally and correctly rule against her, not out of personal animosity, but because bias against women is built into Islamic law.

So, to use the CAIR plaintiff’s argument against him: Inheritance cases are exactly the kind of injustices that Oklahoma is trying to prevent by banning Sharia.

5. Subjectively, Sharia is a discriminatory and cruel legal system.

Finally, we get to the argument that most pundits and bloggers make: Sharia should be rejected because it’s just plain awful. While this may resonate with people personally and emotionally, it’s rather weak as a legal argument.

Sharia’s defenders complain that their opponents endlessly focus on the negative aspect of Sharia, and ignore the other parts which are reasonable, mild and non-controversial. I call this “The Trains Run on Time” fallacy. According to the old joke, when Italians during Mussolini’s rule were asked what it’s like to live in a fascist police state, they’d respond, “It’s not so bad: at least the trains run on time!” In other words, one could always find some good aspect to an unpleasant situation. So naturally Sharia’s defenders in the West will focus on the positive and try to sweep the negative under the rug. But such PR tactics in no way alter the fundamental fact that Sharia contains a significant number of laws and rules and punishments that are unacceptable and repellant to the average American.

CAIR and its allies are constantly talking out both sides of their mouths. On one hand, they say that Sharia’s never been used in Oklahoma and there’s no risk of it ever being used, so there’s nothing to worry about and we should toss out this new law as unnecessary; and simultaneously, if you flick the remote control over to the next channel, you’ll see a different CAIR spokesperson arguing for how reasonable and humanitarian Sharia is, and really we shouldn’t fear its introduction, because we’ll all benefit. Hmmmm. Double-talk is a dead giveaway for ill-intent.

CAIR’s main argument against State Question 755 is that it “singles out” Muslims for discrimination. Though this argument is so absurd it barely merits rebuttal, I should briefly address it since it seems to be CAIR’s primary legal claim. First of all, SQ 755 doesn’t ban Sharia in Oklahoma; it merely bans judges from considering Sharia when making decisions. And since we’ve seen above that this recommendation is already in accord with Constitutional principles, then there’s no basis on which to challenge the law. CAIR is sure to reply: Yes, but why us? Why single out Sharia and Muslims? To which I reply: Do you really want to go there? The answer is obvious: No other religion currently seeks to supplant the United States Constitution with is own religious commandments. Why not pass a law banning Buddhist laws from the Oklahoma courts? Because there aren’t a billion Buddhists worldwide calling for the involuntary global implementation of Buddhist law. Sharia is perceived as a threat precisely because it is more than just religious law — it is an overarching form of theocratic government antithetical to the United States of America — and because it is has an extremely large number of adherents and advocates.

This article goes into greater depth about possible legal objections to the new measure, quoting left-leaning Harvard law professor Noah Feldman as saying, “It’s a violation of the free exercise of Muslims in Oklahoma and it’s a violation of the separation between church and state.” But this is a false claim: nothing about SQ 755 prevents Muslims from following Sharia themselves in their own personal or religious lives (provided by so doing they don’t break U.S. law); it merely prevents the courts from incorporating Sharia law into its decision-making. Here’s the text of State Question 755, which “makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law.” Tell me: In what way does this interfere with Muslims freely exercising their religion in Oklahoma? It doesn’t — unless the free exercise of your religion involves violating or undermining the U.S. Constitution. In which case, yeah, the courts should discriminate against your religious practice.

America only frowns on baseless discrimination; but official discrimination against any individuals, groups or religious ideology seeking to undermine or destroy the United States itself is not just acceptable, it is mandatory.

While this fifth and final argument is not as legally or logically weighty, it can be much more emotionally compelling because it allows one to present anecdotes about Sharia in contemporary real-world contexts. What does U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange have to say about the following martyrs to Sharia?

A Palestinian atheist jailed for more than a month for sharing his anti-Islam views on the Internet has apologized for offending Muslims, and a Palestinian military spokesman said he expected “positive” developments in the case.

Rights groups have criticized his arrest as a demonstration of the limits on free speech under the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which has trawled Internet sites like Facebook as part of a crackdown on dissent and unpopular views.

The 26-year-old blogger, Walid Husayin — who had called the Muslim God a “primitive Bedouin” and Islam a religion of “irrationality and ignorance” — apologized in a letter to his family and to all Palestinians and sought forgiveness for what he called his “stupidity.”

“I apologize for the offense I have caused against the monotheistic faiths, particularly Islam,” the letter read.
Palestinian military police arrested Husayin on Oct. 31 after he posted comments deemed offensive to Islam on his Facebook page and blog. Defaming Islam is a crime in the West Bank.

A friend said Husayin posted the apology on his blog on Nov. 29, most likely with the hope that it would lead to his release. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

He posted the apology from a Palestinian military lockup in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, his hometown.
…
Husayin’s writing appeared aimed at provoking Muslims. He made Facebook profiles claiming he was God, called the Prophet Muhammad a philanderer and penned spoof verses of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

Days after his arrest, shocked residents called for him to be killed as a warning to others.

Amazingly, Husayin’s English-language atheist blog is still online, and for the curious has several rather amusing atheist proclamations. Especially worth reading is his essay on Why I Left Islam. It should be noted that there are literally millions of similarly aggressive atheist blogs in the U.S., and those American atheist bloggers suffer no legal ramifications whatsoever for their writings, as guaranteed by the Constitution. But under Sharia, American atheists (not to mention Jews, pagans, Christians, etc.) could be treated the same way as Walid Husayin. Judge Miles-LaGrange, are you listening?

Pakistani authorities have arrested a doctor on suspicion of violating the country’s contentious blasphemy law by throwing away a business card of a man who shared the name of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, police said Sunday.

The blasphemy law has been widely criticized by human rights groups following the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death last month for insulting Islam. Critics say the law should be amended or repealed because it is often used to settle grudges, persecute minorities and fan religious extremism.

Naushad Valiyani, a Muslim doctor in the southern city of Hyderabad, was arrested Friday after a complaint was lodged with police alleging his actions had insulted the Prophet Muhammad, said regional police chief Mushtaq Shah.

The case began Friday when Muhammad Faizan, a pharmaceutical company representative, visited Valiyani’s clinic and handed out his business card. He said when the doctor threw the card away, Faizan went to police and filed a complaint that noted his name was the same as the prophet’s.

Shah said police were investigating whether Valiyani should be charged with blasphemy.

Turbaned men in Pakistan gather around a woman with a black hood over her head, pick up large rocks and repeatedly throw them at her until she lies motionless, stretched along the ground, a video purports.

A Dubai-based television station which released the footage said the stoning was carried out in northwest Pakistan, apparently by Taliban militants, incensed because she was seen out with a man.

The footage is a stark reminder that despite a series of military offensives the army said had weakened insurgents, militants still control areas of the northwest and impose their harsh version of Islam at will.

Dubai’s Al Aan television, which focuses on women’s issues in the Arab world, said it got the tape from its sources and that it took place in Orakzai agency in northwest Pakistan. It said it had other footage of a man who was executed by shooting, possibly the one the woman was seen with.

It was not possible to verify its authenticity or when it was filmed.

Such videos aren’t unique. Last year Pakistanis were outraged after footage widely aired on television showed militants in the northwest Swat Valley publicly flogging a teenage girl accused of having an affair.

Is this the kind of legal system we want influencing our courts in the United States of America?

240 Comments, 101 Threads

1.
proreason

Excellent. Thanks.

What is most amazing to me is that people will argue in favor of a legal system that sought to reverse civilization by a thousand years, AS OF 800 A.D.; and they will be precisely the first people who would be executed under it’s insane premordial dictates.

….Not only that,did you know that Islam is fulfilling Bible prophecy?It is the Antichrist Beast.FACTS:ISLAM changes laws,beheads nonmuslims,disregards the rights of women,blasphemes the God of the Bible,bows to an “image”5 times a day,worships a “god”of war AND it is awaiting the Mahdi(antimessiah)In Hebrew alah means CURSE.Zechariah warns of an alah(curse)spreading over the Earth.This curse is Islam.

By this same argument, we should pass a ban on People’s Court, Judge Judy, arbitration panels, and all other venues that aren’t legally established by the U.S. or state constitutions. The argument just isn’t applicable. Some people are afraid that something that can’t happen is inexplicably going to happen. What a sad life of fearful frets to live in.

Richard, you can’t be serious. These “courts” you mention are not courts of law. The participants agree in advance to abide by the decision of the judge. They do that because it is unenforceable, and if you sign a contract, well, that is.

I’m always surprised by how few people know what Sharia law is, and among those who’ve heard the term, very few see it as a threat or understand its dire and horrific tenets. Kudos to Oklahoma for having the foresight to take a stand.

They need to assimilate or leave. If they like that law so much over there, they should have stayed. This is OUR country, our culture and they are indeed polluting this country with their ignorance and making many who think they are being “contemporary” to try it on. This profane law should never be considered in the U.S.A.

But there is no need to argue against the imposition of Sharia law in the United States. No one advocates it, and there is no danger of it happening. There is complete, undisputed agreement that the Constitution is the supreme law of the United States, and that any judge who followed Shariah law in contradiction to the Constitution should have his holding reversed. No one is advocating that judges should be able to do this.
There is a difference between “consdering” Sharia law and being bound by it. For a legislature to tell courts what they can “consider” is to tell them what they can think, and violates the separation of powers laid down in every state’s constitution. If the legislature’s purpose is to tell judges that they cannot follow Shariah law in contradiction to the Constitution, the legislation is unnecessary political posturing, because the appeals courts would immediately reverse any judge that did so.

Besides this confusion between judges “considering” other law and being bound by other law, the other area that seems to alarm some folks is that courts will enforce private contracts on, for example, marriage, divorce, child custody, or financial matters, with arbitration agreements chosen by the parties themselves. Contracts cannot be enforced if they call for illegal actions, but to oppose the enforcement of legal contracts is extremely “un-American,” because contracts are where private parties make their own law. If Muslim parties have agreed in advance to submit any contractual disputes to an Islamic arbitrator chosen in advance by both parties, a court enforcing that agreement, as long as it dopesn’t violate U.S. law, is not “imposing Sharia law.” The court is enforcing Anerican law on the right of private parties (which could be you) to make their own contracts.

It took only about 25 years to impose Prohibition in the USA. Am I to believe that a group even more fanatical than the Temperance Movement couldn’t accomplish at least as much in that time?

See, it won’t start with stonings and mutilations. It will be instead sneaked under the cover of injured civil rights. It will be argued that it’s only fair for willing, informed Muslims to settle their affairs according to their culture? So Sharia for family law only. While we’re at it, how about an exclusive time and day when the public pool is available only to Muslims. You know, the culture values modesty, so it’s only fair. Oh, and how about some schools where all female students must wear a hijab.

Reading thru this actually scares the bejabbers outta me. There are about 90 people here all speaking out for the constitution, and against sharia law. Which means there are over 300 million that have no clue as to what Islam is all about in the first place. That’s scary.

And in my day to day conversation with others, they as well convey the idea that Islam is a religion and should be given the same consideration the the Constitution guarantees under the Freedom Of Religion clause. That as well is scary. It means that they do not know what the either the constitution or the Quoran says.

The constitution states that “Congress shall not create a national religion” or words to that effect. No guarantee of freedom of religion is written in. And Islam says in other words “There shall be no religion on the earth other than Islam, and it it the duty of all Islamic peoples to destroy or subjugate infidels” I can’t see these two premises surviving in the same country – one or the other will eventually prevail.

And by the way I drive a Prius, Hug trees, believe in saving the environment so long as it doesnt take precedance over humans, and voted conservative in all elections since Ronald Reagan.

Great article! The only problem is that w/ the idiots we currently have being appointed to the Supremes, it will only be a matter of time until the constitution is thrown out for international law. It is already happening little by little….as judges can base their opinions on anything they want.

Yes, very good article.
One slight quibble would be about inheritances vs. wills.
Many states have requirements about them.
In Illinois, a spouse must receive at least 50% (at least as of about 5 years ago) even if female. My fifth grade teacher got caught up in that. After browbeating and insisting on uncompensated work from her husband for many years in setting up a retirement jewelry business, she couldn’t will everything to a church.
Many states also have requirements disallowing disowning adopted children (some also set %s for them larger than an even distribution would be and none of those clauses allow for females getting half a male portion)

This would not preclude trusts, living trusts, and other endeavors, but Islam compliant (2x for males) wills may not be legal in many states.

This is a very well articulated argument. Unfortunately a single U.S. District court judge can render all of your correct, enjoyable rhetoric, null and void. And this is the real problem. Judges who think their voices equal the constitution, and they may modify it as they see fit. Thank you Vicki Miles-LaGrange (I so hate hyphenated last names) for showing us once again that the judiciary is not subject to any real accountability in this country.

Do we really need to defend American laws in America? Has it really come to this? This is political correctness gone made and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, who ruled in favor of Sharia law, should be impeached and forced off the bench. If she is not willing to uphold American law in an American court, she has no business being on the bench. The very idea that some other law, regardless of where it came from, could be used instead of American law is ridiculous. But you’ll never, ever, get that opinion from either Eric Holder OR Obama. Why they have not come out publicly against this ruling just shows you how much comtempt they have for American law, and Americans in general.

A commonly held belief, but in fact is absolutely wrong. Through abrogation, many of the earlier ‘peaceful’ verses were replaced by the most violent content of the Qur’an which is the basis for fundamentalist Islam today.

Islam was violent, cruel and murderous from the start. Islam is not so much a religion as it is a supremacist political ideology with a narrowly circumscribed set of rituals. If nothing else, the history of Islam is that of a serial murderer of entire cultures and peoples. This is what Islam has done throughout its entire 1400 year history. This is what it has done whenever it has finally gotten the upper hand in whatever culture is has opposed. This is what has been inextricably interwoven into the ‘DNA’ of its operating system. Those whom Islam does not slaughter, it enslaves, diminishes and impoverishes. Islam strives for the conversion, enslavement or death of all who do not conform to its sadistic and cruel vision of Mankind. Islam cannot be ‘reformed’ in the light of our Western values of humanity and freedom. Were that so, it would no longer be Islam. For its psychopathic and cruel misogyny alone, Islam is an abomination and worthy only of extinction.

There are those who would say that Christianity is the same (some, like the pseudo actress Whoopi Goldberg claims that the Oklahoma City bomber was a Christian terrorist). However I argue that you have to look at the intent or basis of the religion, not so much the actions of it’s believers. Does the believer do what he/she does because of the teachings or in spite of. For Christianity, most if not all of the bad things done have been in spite of the teachings (unless a Christian is trying to defend him/herself). For Islam, all of the bad things have been done BECAUSE of the teachings, not in spite of.

The moral equivalance argument – a favorite trope of the intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt Left – is nonsense, particularly in this context. The histories of Islam and Christianity are in no way comparable, nor are their respective ‘source documents’ – the bible and the Q’uran and its supporting commentaries.

There is simply too much supporting scholarship to allow the “Well – Christianity is no better” argument to stand. Delivering the proof behind that statement will make leftist Islamic apologists cry.

The Constitution of the United States of America was put in place by the legitimate representatives of we the People of the United States. King George did not agree and so it came to blows between we the People and H.M. the King of England. Anyone daring to overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America should be resisted and eventually defeated by the force of arms. There was no other way in the late 1700′s and there is no other way now.

A note: there are religions that hold secret tribunals and have a parallel law system. One I can name is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania Inc. also known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. Not so surprisingly their “theology,” while pseudo-Christian, resembles Islam very much.

Using these aberrations as an excuse, the day will come that all religion will be banned in the U.S.A. by the army of judges, and politicians of the progressive kind. Wake up Americans, this is not something that can be resolved by democratic dialog. Countries are formed to wage war and organize defense. This is a war without rockets or bullets. Recognize it for what it is.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are nothing like Muslims. I have family and friends that are witnesses so I have first hand experience in the way they deal with the law. One example that they use is when Christ was asked by the disciples if they should pay taxes. He showed them a Roman coin with the head of Julius Ceasar on it and said give Ceasar what is his. They are taught to follow the law of the land and not to become violent if the government where they live oppresses their religion. There are thousands of Witnesses around the world in prisons because of their beliefs and you will never see them leading a holy war. Jehovahs Witnesses have rules regarding conduct of its members regarding their morality. Adultery, dishonesty, etc. will result in a member being banned from the congregation. There are no rules regarding law enforcement.

I have to make a comment here about Cantino throwing JW’s into the mix!! HUH??? while I do not agree with their theology, the only thing they have in common with Islam is that they both deny the Deity of Christ eg, that He is NOT God Incarnate!! but just a man.. Lets keep our eye on the ball, and that is ISLAM!!! JW’s DO NOT conflict with any laws of the land , as far as I know they are not trying to set up an alternative political and religious system by killing all opposition… if I am wrong, Cantino, please inform me of what other beliefs they have in alignment with islam , that has vowed to impose itself POLITICALLY and MILITARILY upon all non believers!! … thanks,..

I agree with Libertyship46 above. The fact that we are even discussing this just shows how far we’ve fallen from the Constitution and our Founders vision for this country. Sharia has no place in our legal system, nor does any law from any other country. Stupid me, but I thought this was common knowledge. I suppose the best way to invalidate our Constitution is to just ignore it.

Now, we have another problem: How do we remove an obviously unqualified judge from the bench, and replace her with someone who at least has a toehold on the concept of American jurisprudence? She must be removed, no if’s, and’s or but’s about it.

Miles-LaGrange, received a certificate from the University of Ghana in Accra, Ghana, West Africa in 1973, and graduated cum laude from Vassar College in 1974. She then received her J.D. from Howard University in Washington, DC in 1977. There, she was an editor of The Howard Law Journal……………….no communist or socialist leanings at any of these schools…nope…..no deep seated revulsion to white America in these schools..nope….how on earth did this person get on a bench…….

It may very well come to that because judges are afraid of being killed if they do not agree with the people pushing Islam. The judges will control and the ones who try to stop it risk their own murder.

Sharia law as an all encompassing legal system will never take hold in the US as the rest of us who are not Muslim will want nothing to do with it, neither do we allow religious systems to superimpose their own forms of justice in criminal cases.

However, there is limited room for civil interactions to be judged under sharia law for Muslims who choose to settle matters that way. A certain equivalent exists today for Orthodox Jews who also have their own legal system of halacha. As far as Civil matters such as marriage and monetary claims, it has been consistently upheld that the Jews have the right to convene within their own Halachic courts (called a Beit Din) where Rabbis judge their case. Their decisions are upheld even in secular courts as the individuals have entered into a binding arbitration agreement as part of the process.

The key here is that the entire system is effectively optional. If a Jewish person wishes, he could go straight to secular court, or have his matter handled by the Rabbis. I don’t see that much problem if Muslims wanted to run certain courts that operate in a similar manner for themselves. I suspect Muslims would not entirely agree as they would try to insist on their own legal system being dominant above all others, but in the end some would give in.

Yes, but SQ755 was not about that issue (of separate courts)! It was about whether Sharia should be used within the American legal system. It said nothing about whether people could adjudicate disputes among themselves according to their own religious principles.

But as I pointed out in the essay, Jewish women do not live in the same kind of oppression and fear experienced by many Muslim women. We can never be assured that Muslim women are consenting to Sharia jurisdiction voluntarily, or out of fear and social pressure.

Our legal and religious roots are described as Judeo-Christian because it accurately reflects our shared heritage. (This is of course contrary to Obama’s assertions that Muslims contributed to the founding of this country.)

The law of the US is the Supreme law of the land. Not Christian law, Jewish law or Muslim law. ANY alternate judicial system (including the Orthodox Jewish option noted above) opens the door for nonsense such as Sharia law, Muslim courts, etc. What next? Special courts and laws for those who worship Roman gods? or Gaia? or Buddha?

Obama and his minions are busily drafting a new narrative for America — past, present and future. It’s a horror story. And yes, it has a bloody, heart-stopping ending.

If two men have a dispute over their contract, and seek out a third to arbitrate their dispute, or work it out on their own, it is no concern of the legal system. Only the use of the State as an instrument of force is the absolute concern of the legal system; all other concerns are contingent upon an individual petitioning the court to settle their dispute.

Zombie.. Your article was a brilliant presentation of by what grounds Sharia law should be fought against..Obviously critics like Ali are muslims and trying to introduce sharia by stealth.. so may i ask you, Zombie, what are you doing for the rest of your life?? Can I suggest you think of entering politics and put sanity back into government?? Colonel Alan West and you would be a lethal combination… please consider running for President and as far as Ali and his whining muzzie klan are concerned, tell them they live by OUR rules or they can please feel free to LEAVE and live in their Islamic hell holes( which of course THEY consider Paradise)

Further, such courts are only civil in jurisdiction, not criminal. If Muslims wanted to make their own Sharia courts, and one Muslim charges another with stealing his wallet, and the court finds the defendant guilty, it would be permissible for them to force the thief to repay two or four or seven times what he stole, and in turn have the accuser declare himself satisfied and not press charges in State court, but it would not be permissible for the court to order him confined, enslaved or have his hand chopped off.

Torah law is not in force today, in Israel nor in the US. Once The Temple was destroyed and the Sanhedrin disbanded, Torah law could no longer control. Nevertheless, Torah law holds that outside of the land of Israel, Jews must follow the laws of the land they live in. The utility of the Beit Din does not operate contrary to US law, it supplements it, hearing issues which are not covered by US law. Importantly, Torah law has no bearing on non Jews.

There is no comparison between Torah law and Sharia.
For example, Torah law is consistent with all of the freedoms in the US Constitution.
These freedoms do not exist in Sharia.

Jewish courts do exist however their rulings are subservient to American law. For instance a Rabbi will marry two Jews but he must be licensed by the state to do so. In financial matters Jews may indeed take an issue to a Rabbinical court however that ruling must also comply with US Law. If it does not the Rabbinical ruling will be dismissed by the secular court which holds prominence. The only areas where a Rabbinical ruling holds prominence are those that US courts do not enter int0, for instance on purely religious issues.

The real question should be: why do we let Muslims into the United States? Islam comes in a complete package of religious/social/legal laws that are in direct opposition to Western values. As Erdogan of Turkey said, Islam is Islam. There is no “moderate” Islam no matter how many times liberals like to repeat the mantra. They view their religious laws as above our constitution. So I ask again, why are we letting these people come in?

You say “To address one final question which may arise: What if two people voluntarily enter into a contract based on non-US law, or voluntarily agree to have their civil dispute adjudicated by a Sharia court?”
Don’t know about the USA, but in the Netherlands a contract is invalidated if (part of) it contradicts Dutch law, so that would be out.

The same applies to many civil statutes here in Australia. Private agreements (or parts thereof) are “of no effect” to the extent that they offend against the provisions of the statute.

We here in OZ have so far been spared the debate, but no doubt it will take place here in due course. I had hoped that we might benefit from the example of what is happening in our old ‘mother country’, Britain to avoid the muslim problem here, but our increasingly vocal left wing intelligentsia seems determined to drag us down the same path to ruin.

Well not quite right. In Victoria elements of Sharia can be considered when it comes to human rights. Victoria has native courts so I see Islamic courts slipping in just nicely. No problem mate. Read all in the “Winds of Jihad” by Sheikyermami

Since someone will eventually try to claim Islamic law (sharia) is just like Jewish law (halacha) and deserves the same standing, let me quash that claim here. For Jews, a guiding principle in effect for some 2,500 years, going back to the first exile to Babylonia, is “the law of the land is the law” (in Aramaic, “dina de’malkhuta dina”), which grants binding legitimacy to man-made laws. There’s nothing comparable under Islam. So a future Jewish President can honestly take the oath of office to govern according to the Constitution, while a believing Muslim could not, except to the extent that “deception” is permitted when it aids the advance of Islam over non-believers.

Agreed, for the Jew as well as the Christian recognizes that it is the Lord who raises up governments over men, so man’s laws must be obeyed insofar as they neither compel evil nor forbid good. If man’s law forbade honoring the sabbath or compelled the worship of strange gods, we would be morally obliged to disobey it, but so long as nothing in the law interferes with our duty to the Lord, it is our moral obligation to obey the law because God granted the government the authority to make laws.

Number 1 should be: Because to accept Sharia is to accept Mohammedanism, which is to accept a global view that is, at best, one step away from barbarism.

We reject Sharia violence. We reject Sharia theocracy. We reject the enslavement of women. We refuse to follow the dictates of a “prophet” who was nothing more than a warrior politician. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just that we prefer NOT to *submit*.

Right. Now, do a text substitution of “deuteronomic law” for Sharia law, and you’ll understand why those of us who do support the Constitution are continually battling the faction of the religious right that actually has enough numbers in the US to be a threat to our civil liberties.

I’m in partial agreement with you on this, but there’s a big distinction — four big distinctions, actually:

- First of all, there already have been many many rulings from the bench smacking down any attempt to introduce Christianity, even in its mildest form, into the public law. Not only are Biblical laws excluded from Constitutional deliberations, but Americans can’t even display reminders like the Ten Commandments or the Nativity in most public spaces. While I concede that, yes, there are a (comparatively small) number of ultra-fundamentalist Christians who would like to see Biblical laws in the U.S., they and their cause have already been effectively rebutted, and the rebuttal is now part of established case law, so have basically no chance of ever getting anywhere.

- Christians don’t even follow “deuteronomic law” in their own lives, so how could they insist that everyone follow it? In discussions with Christians, I’ve discovered that many hold to the belief that Jesus obviated the need to follow all the detailed laws of the Old Testament, so they are free from all that — which is why Christians don’t keep kosher, hide out in a tent during their menstrual periods, kill disobedient children, etc., and everything else commanded in ““deuteronomic law.”

- The federal legal system of the US was formed specifically to put an end to things like the theocratic laws of Puritan-era Massachusetts, so it’s an already an established legal principle that Christian theocracy (in particular) is forbidden.

Despite this country being 70+% Christian, can you point to a single place where a Biblical law, with Biblical wording, has been incorporated as part of US law?

- And lastly: “deuteronomic law” is nowhere near as all-inclusive as Sharia. Even if we were to get some Biblical-type laws in some states, it’s not like Sharia where the very fundamentals of the whole legal system would be altered. It’s like comparing a fly in your soup to an entire soup composed of flies.

Liberals over the past 45 years have grown more and more to be reflexively against whatever they see conservatives (and in most cases, the vast majority of moderates) are for, whether it is the Ninth Circuit’s war on the Pledge of Allegance or the Sharia law ruling here. Logic goes out the window, to be replaced by the idea that if the majority of Americans are for something, there must be a backwards provincialism involved that makes the idea invalid.

The belief that xenophobia drives Americans actions makes them reflexively support the opposite side of the argument, without ever considering why there should suddenly be two sets of laws governing the country after 234 years. Sadly, it would probably take the emergence of Sharia law-supporting Muslims, who at the same tine backed and gave money to conservative Republican candidates, for liberals to suddenly decide that two sets of laws for the nation isn’t such a great idea after all.

Its a Prius-driving, Starbucks-drinkin’, NYTimes-reading, Whole Foods eatin’ Chicago liberal who superficially knows one Muslim guy at the office and thinks its a nice, warm-and-fuzzy fantasy-world gesture in support of NPR’s drumbeat of a solutions to our evil, carbon-belching, imperialistic, Earth-insulting Capitalist society.

Excellent article. Exactly as you point out – the argument should not be on the nature of Sharia Law, i.e., whether its values are good or bad, but on the constitutional and legal fact that US Law is supreme in the land. Nothing else need be said.

IF one then wants to debate the societal nature of Sharia ‘Law’ – by all means. Point out that it is gender discriminatory, that it is violent and inhumane, that it sets itself up as dogma and beyond human reasoning or interpretation or change. The key point remains: The Supremacy Clause. US Law is supreme.

This case is tailor-made for the doctrines of nullification and interposition. The Oklahoma legislature needs to declare this idiot judge’s ruling null and void under both Article VI and the 10th Amendment, then authorize the governor to begin enforcement of the new law. Any federal goon attempting to intervene would be subject to a hefty fine and up to a year in jail (the Wyoming “firearm freedom” law taken a step further) for the 1st offense. The jail term would increase exponentially for each subsequent offense.

Of course, it goes without saying that state would confiscate the arrested feds’ weapons and auction them off to the high bidders.

Oklahoma was the only state where Obama did not carry a single county. Here’s their chance to live up to that honor.

Bears pointing to the obvious hypocrisy and double standards of most leftists – here and elsewhere.

All of you Libs are always clamoring for that supposed “wall of separation” clause. So why aren’t you stooges the very first ones on board with SQ755? In fact, why did it require a Conservative to write and push for passage?

Not only should you hypocrites have been the first and most vocal ones on board in passing SQ755, you should have been the ones that framed and presented the proposal.

Good article. Too bad BHO can’t spread his genius around more broadly and focus in on Muslims “clinging” to Sharia. But that’s pretty unthinkable.

The Oklahoma tempest was about Muslim sensitivities. Unless they have their heads in the sand it should be clear to most of these people that Islam has little to no appeal to Americans. Jumping on the proposed OK law was as much about pretending that it might have appeal some day as it was about standing up for Islam.

We should all remember the old saying that “The Devil’s greatest achievement was in convincing the world that he did not exist.” (Note to the sensitive – I am not comparing Islam to the Devil.)

The achievement in this case is in convincing so many of our mutton-headed elites that sharia is just another form of social organization that should be tolerated as part of the great “mosaic” of American life. We should never forget that CAIR and similar organizations are backed by billions of dollars and are staffed by very smart people. They have shrewdly adopted the “victimization” model in advancing their agenda and have successfully presented themselves (to the aforementioned elites at least) as an “oppressed minority” deserving of accredited victimhood status. The argument goes that shariac law is an essential part of Muslim cultural “identity” and should be accomodated by America as a whole. If someone points out that this is flagrantly unconstitutional and directly counter to almost every principal of Western law then such a statement is taken as proof of the speaker’s bigotry and underlying racism.

What do American “progressives” get out of all of this? After all, an increasing amount of commentary is pointing out the unlikely nature of this de facto alliance between the most retrograde strains of Islam and the supposedly “progressive” Left. My own belief is that there are three reasons:

The first is simply good old-fashioned progressive nihilism and its knee-jerk antipathy to the Western inheiritance. By embracing something so alien to Western values the typical liberal can warm himself in the glow he gets from rejecting the values of the American bourgeoisie. The second is the Left’s underlying lack of seriousness about its own values. The rights of women, for example, is all well and good on an American college campus but becomes a far trickier proposition when the oppression of women takes place in the context of a “vibrant foreign culture.” Finally there is the desire on the part of a large number of leftist lawyers and jurists to inject aspects of “international law” into American jurisprudence. If sharia can become entrenced as a recognized part of any part of the American legal system then this will open the door to the direct use of precedent and statutes from other countries in American courts. (Here I am thinking of Justice Scalia’s blistering dissent in the 2005 juvenile death-penalty case of “Roper v. Simmons.”)

Zombie is right – This essay should not have needed to be written. However that is not the case. A full-court press is being put on by clever and well-financed operatives (and their “useful idiot” allies) to undermine key elements of the American legal system in the service of a foreign ideology.

Damn…that was so well put. I’m of the thought that Americans are fed up and so sick of islam, it’s crap ( tenants ) that it won’t be long before these savages have pushed all the wrong buttons ( how can they possibly think that a basically Christian nation will agree to this total usurpation of freedom? ).

I can also see the reality of camps in Crystal River again with a fearless leader who will not be cowed or coerced into believing that islam is a religion…but a political ideology that needs to be arrested, if not eliminated from our society. ( So..I say to these heathens…keep on pushing. You won’t be nor should you be surprised at the violent backlash that you’re responsible for. ) And deservedly so. Muslims are by their creed….are so totally and so unambiguously anti American…that they are begging for internment.

If they really want respect and acceptance in America…they need to shut out and eliminate the savages among them.

SQ755, does nothing more than require Oklahoma judges to use duly enacted U.S. and Oklahoma law as the SOLE basis for deciding legal issues. It prohibits state judges from using Sharia or any OTHER foreign law that has not been specifically enacted or adopted by Oklahoma law makers. What the judge’s ruling really means is that the free and sovereign people of Oklahoma may NOT decide for themselves what laws they must obey. Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange’s ruling is nothing short of tyranny and is intolerable. It must be overturned and she must be impeached because she is obviously not fit to sit as a judge.

zombie: while I have disagreed with you many times, this is one great article. as you know I was born and raised in Iran in a very consevative muslim house hold for the first 19 years of my life, unlike anyone here I first hand expierenced sharia laws and they are brutal at best. this is very serous problem and we must do everthing we can to undo it. political correcness about these laws should be exposed. period. let me familira the bloggers here with some of sharia laws:
1- women are not allowed to go to mosque if they are on their period.
2-inheritence laws are as follows:
son gets half/daughetr 1/4/ and wife 1/8.
3-during the momth od Ramadan you may not eat or drink in public or else you are fucked.
4-no alcholic beverages. if you are caught 100 lashes will be awaiting you.
4-no sex out side of the marriage or else if you are a man you will be lashed(you get a break) and if you are a woman you will be stoned to death.
5-married women may not travel outside of the country or town they live in without permission of their husband.
6-if a man is caught urinating standing up, 200 lashes will be waiting for him.
7-more to come, I have to go back to work now. it is disgusting in NYC today.
M

our beloved mayor bloomberg is under fire for not going a good job of clrearing the streets. as I promised here are more Sharia laws:
8-a man could divoerce his wife by reciting the Talagh(diveorce) three times and he is good to go.
8-women once divorced have no rights to raise the kids. all rights are given to men.
9- by the time girls turn 9, men can marry them. in the western societies this is called Pedophilia.on this particular law though, I have to admit that muslims borrowed a chapter for the catholic church, as in catholic church the best form of sexual behavior is for the priest to rape and sodomize 9 year alter boys. muslims at least are keeping it hetrosexual.
10- Jazya(taxes) once muslims take over every non muslim will become second citizen and have to abey muslims and pay taxes.
11-more to come in a few

If Sharia Courts became valid, I’ll be first on line to get a Catholic Court of Equity set up. If Leftists are going to insist on religious Courts, we should at least have some good choices.

(And yeah, the Catholic Church really dishonored itself and Christ’s message with the whole abuse scandal, I doubt it would have lasted as long as it did if the Priests in question were tried in Courts of Equity, open to the faithful public, from day one. Secrecy was the real problem there)

Point of order- there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids states from enacting and enforcing prohibitions on extramarital sex, so long as the punishment is consistent with the 8th Amendment. Indeed, several states have statutory rape laws wherein marrying the victim is a positive defense.

Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner considers the Netherlands should give Muslims more freedoms to behave according to their traditions. Muslims refusing to shake hands is fine with him. And Sharia law could be introduced in the Netherlands democratically, in the minister’s view.

Donner strongly disagrees with a recent plea by CDA parliamentary leader Maxime Verhagen for a ban on parties seeking to launch Sharia (Islamic law) in the Netherlands. “For me it is clear: if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Sharia tomorrow, then the possibility should exist,” according to Donner. “It would be a disgrace to say: ‘That is not allowed!’.”

My Point 2 (or at least the part you are referring to) is not simply some opinion that I have: It’s a critical aspect of the Constitution that exists irrespective of how I feel about it.

Built-in to the Constitution is the ability of the people to change it, through “Amendments.” The bar is set very high for Amendments to pass (2/3 of the House, then the difficult part, 3/4 of the state legislatures), so it’s not so easy for any one Amendment to pass — there must be near-unanimity nationwide on the issue.

Without the ability to Amend the Constitution we’d still be living in the 18th-century, law-wise — only white male property owners could vote; slavery would exist, etc. etc. Obviously the Amendment process is a good thing. Along with this necessary capability must always come some risk, that people will pass an awful amendment — which has a happened a couple times, most notably Prohibition (which thankfully was later repealed).

My main Point 2 is that Sharia is undemocratic, which is undenably true, and that makes it impossible to incorporate into our existing legal structure. Yet the fact remains, if 3/4s of the states voted to expunge the existing Constitution in its entirety, we could indeed get Sharia in the US. I don’t want that to happen, obviously, I’m just poitning out the only way it could happen. At present, I assign it a probability of about .00000001% of ever occurring, mercifully.

Without the ability to Amend the Constitution we’d still be living in the 18th-century, law-wise — only white male property owners could vote; slavery would exist, etc. etc.

I have to quibble because this mistake always irks me (cf. Whoopi Goldberg clutching her chest in mock fear over the possibility that slavery could return to the U.S.). The Thirteenth Amendment is actually another of those redundancies in the Constitution. Black people were always entitled to their Constitutional rights, but these rights were illegally withheld in the days of slavery (and of Jim Crow). The problem wasn’t the Constitution, but the failure to follow it.

Islam plays it’s part well. It helps bring change to American culture. That is why millions have been allowed into these United States, Europe, and down under. Those who follow Mohammad can’t help but plan murder. Just watch the news. It is almost every day now.

Allah, which means the god, is one of 360 gods at the Kabba. Allah Akbar means the god is greatest. The god is greatest of what? It is greatest of all other gods at the kabba. Allah is also known as the moon god. It’s symbol is on top of Mosques. Allah does not exist. Therefore; it’s religion, and religious laws are false.

Surely you are joking? Did you even bother to look up the history of the crescent? No, it is not a reference to Allah being a moon god, any more than the Byzantines thought yahweh was a moon god.

And Islam is far more expressly monotheistic than early Judaism was. Islam says “there is no god but God”. The first of the Decalogue says “I am The Lord your god, you shall have no other gods before me”. A slightly different emphasis, you must agree.

Mohammad learned from Torah scholars. Islam, however, deviated from Torah, more so as time went on. From Torah, itself, from Abraham, Issac and from Jacob, we learn that there is only One G-D, The One G-D. This is the essence of Judaism.
Matthew makes a common mistake when he reads Torah misunderstanding the pleural, he related after G-D’s name. The reference there is not regarding the One G-D, but those others mistakenly believe in.
G-D makes extremely clear, repeatedly in the Torah, that He alone is G-D.
He directs people to reject other gods as they may believe have power.
He teaches that they don’t.
Muslims who learn that there is no G-D but G-D have learned from Torah.

‘In the United States of America, only U.S. law governs. Period. You can’t violate a U.S. law and then offer up as a legal excuse, “Well, in Mongolia what I did is perfectly legal!” You’d be convicted, while the jury laughed’.
…
I don’t understand how they don’t understand that.
…

The U.S. is already practicing sharia in a limited way. The AIG group has a sharia finance division and it complies with all the Islamic strictures. Furthermore the AIG was bailed out with the American taxpayer money to tune of billions upon billions. So you think sharia law isn’t coming near you. Think again.
P.S. I think some American patriot is suing the government about this.

Robert H. Jackson was the chief US prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, and an associate Supreme Court Justice, well-known for warning in a 1949 dissenting opinion (Terminiello v. Chicago) that if the Court did not “temper doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom,” it risked morphing “the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.” Fifty-six years ago, just before his passing in 1954, Justice Jackson wrote a brilliant foreword to an academic treatise on Islamic Law. His simple, pellucid words should serve as a warning for our era, rife with its dual scourges of ignorance and cultural relativism.

“In any broad sense, Islamic Law offers the American lawyer a study in dramatic contrasts. Even casual acquaintance and superficial knowledge — all that most of us at bench or bar will be able to acquire — reveal that its striking features relative to our law are not likenesses but inconsistencies, not similarities but contrarieties. In its source, its scope and its sanctions, the law [i.e., Islamic Law, Sharia] of the Middle East is the antithesis of Western Law.”

Zombie: Here’s another argument in favor of the Oklahoma law and one I can’t believe the trial court missed: The very action of the opponents in seeking an injunction objectively disproves their claim that the law is unnecessary and, presumably therefore irrelevant.

Why? Because in order to obtain a preliminary injunction, a party must prove irreperable harm. But if imposition of this law causes irreperable harm, then it cannot be said to be irrelevant. The very act of seeking this injunction proves that they believe the law does change the basic legal status quo in some fashion, otherwise there would be no harm in leaving the law along, unchallenged and unappealed.

“Those who oppose Sharia in the United States often argue their point by highlighting how misogynistic, backward, cruel and discriminatory Islamic law can be under most interpretations.”

Sometimes I wish…I just wish…that my fellow patriots, citizens and ALL Americans would just…PLEASE…wakeup! Can we? How long do we need to wait, obfuscate, moralize and PC to death what we all know is a vile, despicable, murderous, anti human, anti civilization…anti life, degenerate, anti freedom taking political ideology, worse than the commies…the same as the Nazi’s wish…to eliminate our way of life.

Just what is it in us… that even tolerates for more than one minute… this diabolical, retro, savage, inhuman crap known as a “religion”.

Nazism was also a “religion”. How long will it take us to get up…spit upon these barbarians, mock them and send them to prison?

We all get pissed off at having to tolerate or pay homage to the “mob”…yet for some reason we have to give this nonsense a second thought cause they bend over on rugs?

If it were Christains, Hindus or Jews espousing this filth against humanity….we’d be using the bomb. Just like we did on the religionists of seppuku, militaristic savages of Japan no that long ago.

I won’t even be convinced after seeing a million muslim march on DC…where they’re waving American flags and singing “GOD BLESS AMERICA” that they would ever back away from their objectives.

It’s clear as well as pure and simple…that not only islaam must go…but CAIR and any judge that can’t support our republic and our way of life in America.

Hey…the real fighting is just around the corner from your local mosque.

*they* are offended (offended I tell ya) by ‘bacon’ or even the ‘discussion’ of pork products but us non-sharia ‘infidels’ are supposed to sit by and let them build a YMCA-aka-MOSQUE near where MUSLIMS killed Americans?

Give a mouse a cookie and he’ll want a glass of milk…and a bed to sleep in…and…and…and (children’s book reference).

For crying out loud. The people who wrote that amendment should have seen this coming. Here’s the text (which, I suspect, some posters here won’t have read).

The Courts provided for in subsection A of this section, when exercising their judicial authority, shall uphold and adhere to the law as provided in the United States Constitution, the Oklahoma Constitution, the United States Code, federal regulations promulgated pursuant thereto, established common law, the Oklahoma Statutes and rules promulgated pursuant thereto, and if necessary the law of another state of the United States provided the law of the other state does not include Sharia Law, in making judicial decisions. The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international or Sharia Law. The provisions of this subsection shall apply to all cases before the respective courts including, but not limited to, cases of first impression.

What an idiotic piece of law. Firstly, it pretty darn obviously contradicts the establishment clause:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

I mean – how can that NOT be seen as “making a law respecting an establishment of religion”? It means that muslims can’t defend their right to practice their religion any more. Suppose a cop arrests a halal butcher – a judge now can’t consider halal practice (which does fall under “sharia law”) in ruling in the butcher’s favor, but he CAN consider kashrut (which slaughters animals the same way). Is anyone else starting to see why this is a problem?

It also doesn’t bother to define what “sharia law” actually is. So who decides? The framers of this train wreck have left open the possibility of allowing judgments to be challenged by devious koranic scholars who manage to introduce claims in court that can catch a judge off guard at a later date. Judges may well discover after the fact that they’ve accidentally adhered to some interpretation of sharia that they’d never previously heard of. This law introduces a new legal term that is entirely open to interpretation. Absolutely brilliant work, guys.

Replace the occurrences of “sharia law” in that amendment with “the ten commandments” and ask yourself whether you think it’s constitutional. If that doesn’t do it, sneak in the words “beth din” (most of you will need to google that) and see if you still think it’s constitutional.

If the oklahoma legislature is really worried about the worst impacts of sharia law, then write some flamin’ laws to outlaw those. Ramp up protections for women, if that’s what is required. Put it in law, for goodness’ sake. This is just grandstanding, and it’s bad law to boot. And it SHOULD make other religious minorities very nervous.

I can’t believe that 70% of ANY intelligent population supported this.

“23 fallacies, straw-man arguments and misstatements in just seven paragraphs. Not bad — above average for a leftist troll!”

23, eh? I don’t think so. I can accept that some of it is speculative – god knows how the supreme court will rule on any given day. But 23? Nope.

Give me your 5 best examples and I’ll see if I can explain where you’re wrong.

And I’m not sure you’re operating with definition of “troll” that most of us old-timers would recognize. I’m actually answering your response, for one thing. And I am being quite civil. I’m just disagreeing with you.

“Suppose a cop arrests a halal butcher – a judge now can’t consider halal practice (which does fall under “sharia law”) in ruling in the butcher’s favor, but he CAN consider kashrut (which slaughters animals the same way). Is anyone else starting to see why this is a problem?”

Why would a cop just ‘arrest’ a halal butcher? What possible law could be broken by a licensed butcher that would require evidence of what the butcher is licensed to do?
Oh right, muslims need their ritually slaughtered meats to survive… They can import if it’s that important…
—————-

“It also doesn’t bother to define what “sharia law” actually is. So who decides? The framers of this train wreck have left open the possibility of allowing judgments to be challenged by devious koranic scholars who manage to introduce claims in court that can catch a judge off guard at a later date. Judges may well discover after the fact that they’ve accidentally adhered to some interpretation of sharia that they’d never previously heard of. This law introduces a new legal term that is entirely open to interpretation. Absolutely brilliant work, guys. ”

So you admit there is a threat… hmmm…
———–

“Replace the occurrences of “sharia law” in that amendment with “the ten commandments” and ask yourself whether you think it’s constitutional. If that doesn’t do it, sneak in the words “beth din” (most of you will need to google that) and see if you still think it’s constitutional. ”

America derives its existence from the belief in the God of Israel, not Arabia.. Without the Declaration, the whole kit and kabbodle looses all believability.. I know, that’s your goal..

————-
“If the oklahoma legislature is really worried about the worst impacts of sharia law, then write some flamin’ laws to outlaw those. Ramp up protections for women, if that’s what is required. Put it in law, for goodness’ sake. This is just grandstanding, and it’s bad law to boot. And it SHOULD make other religious minorities very nervous.”

I don’t believe it. You actually invoked godwin’s law and compared me to nazis because I think people shouldn’t be discriminated against on the basis of religion. Do you have any understanding of the work “irony”?

“islam and nazis are comparable because of historic WW2 ties, which you may not deny…”

Er, no. I WILL deny it. I don’t know where you’re getting your history books from, but I think you should switch publishers. There wasn’t any alliance between “muslims” and the nazis in WWII. There was a blow-up in iraq when the british decided to put down a government they didn’t like, but that was entirely independent of the war with germany. Yes, there was fighting in egypt and north africa … but the locals weren’t on the side of the fascists – they were INVADED by them. Iran, for example, backed the allies.

You might be thinking of WWI and turkey siding with germany, but there weren’t any nazis back in those days, and from turkey’s point of view it was just part of the centuries-old cycle of punch-ups between the central powers, france, the ottomans, russia and britain. Go get yourself a copy of “empires of the sand” to see how far back that went. And to some extent the arab world even fought with the british (lawrence of arabia – heard of him?)

You have got to be kidding. You’ve found one guy who collaborated with the nazis order to get himself local power, and that’s the basis of your claim that “islam and nazis are comparable because of historic WW2 ties”

You know something interesting? There were plenty of french people who collaborated with the nazis. And dutch. And british. What does that say about christianity, when you throw in the bulk of italy as well? So while we’ve got most of the muslim world either under the heel of the nazi/italian jackboot or actively supporting the allies, and you’ve got ONE GUY who played it the other way – so you conclude that islam is comparable with nazism. Wow. You’ve got a very selective way of looking at evidence.

So … what can we conclude about sikhs who collaborated with the japanese in WWII?

That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen you post, and that’s really saying something.

The revolt was put down with the assistance of the unit Imam, Halim Malkoć and Dr. Schweiger (unit physician). Imam Halim Malkoc told the Bosnian enlisted men of 1st Company that they were being deceived and rallied them to hunting down the instigators. Nevertheless, the mutiny did not spread as far as the exaggerated claims state. Approximately 20 of the rebels were killed summarily or after a trial. The Nazis were convinced that there were communists who had infiltrated the unit in order to disrupt it. Tito once suggested that his partisan followers enlist for police duty in Croatia where they could receive weapons, uniforms and superior training. Afterward there was a purge of members of the unit who were deemed “unsuitable for service” or “politically unsuitable”. More than 800 were removed from the unit and sent to Nazi Germany for “labor service”. It is likely that the bulk of these “unwilling” were Catholic Croats, because by the time the Division came back to Bosnia, only 300 Croats remained in the Division. Sauberzweig reorganized those 300 and sent them all to the Feldgendarmerie Trupp. Sauberzweig blamed the desertions on the Croats and units with Catholic Croat leadership and made it clear not to recruit any more or commission Croats. Of those, 265 who refused to work were sent to Neuengamme concentration camp where many of them died.[18]

Himmler later on said of the mutiny: “I knew there was a chance that a few traitors might be smuggled into the division, but I haven’t the slightest doubt concerning the loyalty of the Bosnians. These troops were loyal to their supreme commander twenty years ago so why shouldn’t they be so today.” Himmler was referring to the Bosnian Muslim troops who had served in the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg army.[19] Himmler awarded the Imam Halim Malkoč an Iron Cross, Second Class, for his role in thwarting the mutiny. Bosnian Muslims Ejub Jašarević and Adem Okanadžić were also decorated by Himmler.

====

Maybe you need to learn a little more about the islam/nazi alliance.. muslims LOVE Hitler…

Did you know that “My Jihad” by Hitler is a best seller in muslim countries?

Turkey loves it…

Now I think you are a muslim because you will not go deeper than a skipping stone when it comes to muslim fault for evil in history…

“oh, I forgot… I like to use wiki on you because you won’t accept any other version..”

And it has a search engine, clearly.

“suck it up buttercup..”

You’re new to this history thing, I can tell. Do some reading about how many foreign volunteers the waffen-ss employed. My choice of french and dutch collaborators in a previous post wasn’t accidental – there were W-SS divisions for dutch and dutch-descended volunteers. And there were french (and spanish) volunteers, and some from eastern europe as well. Like I asked earlier, what does that say about christianity? Or doesn’t that count?

“Maybe you need to learn a little more about the islam/nazi alliance.. muslims LOVE Hitler…”

Maybe you need to learn a bit more about WWII.

“Did you know that “My Jihad” by Hitler is a best seller in muslim countries? Turkey loves it…”

It has apparently sold well at various times, yes – hardly surprising with all the anti-israel rhetoric. But I think it’s going a bit far to call it a “best-seller” unless you can provide some credible sales figures. You’ve probably googled up the story about “100,000 copies” selling in a couple of months in turkey back in 2005. But it was news precisely because it was unusual, and I get the feeling that the numbers were speculative anyway. Meanwhile, it sells consistently well in the US, year in and year out. Can I conclude anything equally grand from that?

Just an opinion: it’s a really crap book. I did open a copy out of curiosity when I was back at uni. The translation was full of spelling and grammatical errors, and it’s basically just a seething paranoid rant. It will disappoint its readers. I am ecumenical, though – I can also report that mao’s little red book is tedious dogma, and gaddafi’s green books are insane.

“Now I think you are a muslim because you will not go deeper than a skipping stone when it comes to muslim fault for evil in history…”

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?261758-Hitler-admired-Islam-not-Christianity
“Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. The Germanic peoples would have become heirs to that religion. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire.

“Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, ‘You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness….”5 (A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 142-143)

================

Of course, the end of Christianity (Jews being the root were targeted first) was the goal.. like yours..

http://old.nationalreview.com/29july02/pryce-jones072902.asp
“But if really Hitler and his henchmen are role models to be imitated, then it is confused and confusing that Arab media regularly publish articles and cartoons caricaturing Israelis as Nazis, twisting the Star of David into a swastika, and so on. In today’s Muslim and Arab world, Hitler and the Holocaust are labels bandied about without regard to historical truth, in order to promote hatred on the one hand, and self-pity on the other — twin signals of intellectual and moral failure.”

This is starting to get a bit wearing. You’re just googling “nazi muslim” or something a grabbing quotes that suit your story. Then I have to work out what it is you’re misusing and explain the background so that you can then claim I said something I didn’t and use that to start the cycle again.

You claim was “historical ties” between “islam” and the nazis. You present a bunch of incidents where muslims did indeed collaborate with nazis, for their own locally-motivated reasons, as proof that you can treat them as “comparable”. I point out that far more christians collaborate with nazis than muslims EVER did and you either claim they magically stopped being christians (yeah, right, and I guess they became christians again afterward?) or that I’m trying to claim that nazis and christians are “comparable”. I’m not – I’m trying to point out the absurdity of your reasoning.

Now, let’s go back a bit and remember where this all came from. You were the one who tried to make the leap of reasoning between nazis and “islam” because I pointed out the irony of somebody going godwin and calling me a nazi because I advocate the free, peaceful practice of religion – something entirely anathema to hitler. That point still stands, and all of the quote-mining you’ve done since does not change that.

I can keep this up if you want. You’re starting from a fundamentally wrong premise and a false historical claim, so it’s pretty easy to debunk your posts (although I notice you’re trying to shift the subject from “historical” to present day conflicts). I don’t think we’re informing anybody here of anything, though. And it’s not an honest debate. But it’s up to you.

“I point out that far more christians collaborate with nazis than muslims EVER did and you either claim they magically stopped being christians (yeah, right, and I guess they became christians again afterward?)”

And I pointed out the to be a Nazi means to renounce your faith in Christ… Pointing out that muslims did not need to give up allah to be Nazi is icing on my point that you refuse to acknowledge… Choosing to be a Nazi is betraying belief in Jesus.. You just can’t refute that.. The collaborators you like to believe are Christian are not Christian.. Real Christians stood against Hitler, paying the price of defiance with their freedom and lives..

You completely avoided that.. as well as the Nazi drive to corrupt, crumble, and wipe away Christianity from the face of Europe and the rest of the world…
You just won’t acknowledge the war on Jesus.. Because you are part of that war..
That’s why you support anti-Christian muslims… it comes naturally..

You have been put on display..

It was never my intent to change your mind, just allow you to reveal yourself..

LOL

Not one iota of Nazi ideology is based in Christianity.. islam on the other hand, as I have shown, had significant influence on Nazi ideology.. In fact, it’s the quranic hate for Christians and especially Jews that buttressed the Faith of Nazi Religion.. This symbiotic Jew/Christian hate is FAR more important than you want to give credit for..

Again, you cite individuals who are nominally Christian becoming nazis and collaborating with nazis as proof of some sort of Christian/nazi nexus.. I show you evidence of nazi/islam ideological collaboration and you dismiss it outright..

Until you acknowledge that Nazis were vehemently anti-Christian, I’m afraid you are deficient in your understanding of world history…

I’m finding it hard to believe that you actually believe this nonsense, or if you’re just so desperate to avoid admitting the ridiculousness of your godwin attempt that you’ll bend space and time.

“And I pointed out the to be a Nazi means to renounce your faith in Christ…”

Absolute rubbish. Type “positive christianity” into your wiki search bar and see what you get.

“Pointing out that muslims did not need to give up allah to be Nazi”

Absolutely. But their interest wasn’t nazism – it was local disputes. Muslims in egypt wanted the british out. Muslims in bosnia had a beef with the serbian slavs. Meanwhile, albania rescued jews. a little knowledge about the history of the balkans might go an awful long way.

“is icing on my point that you refuse to acknowledge… Choosing to be a Nazi is betraying belief in Jesus.. You just can’t refute that..”

Yeah, I really can refute that. You might happen to think that right now, but nationalist lutherans sure as heck didn’t see a contradiction at the time. There were german christian leaders who were quite happy to see an overlap.

“The collaborators you like to believe are Christian are not Christian..”

I love how christian apologists will throw fellow christians under the bus the moment they upset their line of argument. If you rule out everyone who has ever acted criminally, dishonestly, violently or “un-christianly”, there really aren’t a lot of actual christians left. Are there?

“Real Christians stood against Hitler, paying the price of defiance with their freedom and lives..”

Some did. A lot didn’t.

“You just won’t acknowledge the war on Jesus.. Because you are part of that war..
That’s why you support anti-Christian muslims… it comes naturally..”

I’m an antichrist now. Excellent. You just can’t help yourself, can you?

You have been put on display..

I’ll strike a pose.

“It was never my intent to change your mind, just allow you to reveal yourself..”

For crying out loud. You didn’t need to do that. You could have just called me the antichrist to begin with and we could have avoided this whole charade.

“Not one iota of Nazi ideology is based in Christianity..”

The anti-semitism bit?

“islam on the other hand, as I have shown, had significant influence on Nazi ideology..”

Utter nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.

“In fact, it’s the quranic hate for Christians and especially Jews that buttressed the Faith of Nazi Religion..”

I’m sure the german people were very happy to know that their nation was being buttressed by the koran. Can you show me any letters from the time, from german soldiers quoting the koran?

“Again, you cite individuals who are nominally Christian becoming nazis and collaborating with nazis as proof of some sort of Christian/nazi nexus.. “

No – I distinctly wrote in my last post that I’m claiming no such thing. I’m using it to point out the folly of picking a couple of groups of collaborators in local disputes and using it to claim that a quarter of the world’s population today is therefore nazi. Just so (I repeat) you can claim that me upholding religious freedom makes me like goebbels.

“I show you evidence of nazi/islam ideological collaboration and you dismiss it outright..”

No, I believe I tried to put it in context. You’re the one unilaterally excommunicating hundreds of thousands of europeans and their descendants.

“Until you acknowledge that Nazis were vehemently anti-Christian, I’m afraid you are deficient in your understanding of world history…”

Absolutely. Some were. But that’s really not the point you’re trying to prove. Hitler hated anything that challenged his power – and the churches, sometimes, did exactly that. And the german catholic churches in particular (IMHO) deserve kudos for doing it. That doesn’t mean that their congregations necessarily followed, or by joining the army considered that their salvation was no longer necessary.

Of course, all muslims belong to a separate nation from Australia.. the Islamic Ummah..

THE CAIRO DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISLAM

The Member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,

Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith; and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies and to provide solutions to the chronic problems of this materialistic civilization.

Wishing to contribute to the efforts of mankind to assert human rights, to protect man from exploitation and persecution, and to affirm his freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah

ARTICLE 24:

All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.

ARTICLE 25:

The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.

Mathew 48 has a good point in his 2nd last para. The state legislatures all around the Western world can and should pass laws against specific offenses, for the reasons Zombie put in the last para of point 1. If the Left can do it with hate crime, so the right can do it with barbaric ethnic customs. He is also right to say Sharia is not defined.
But I do not see how the proposed amendment has anything to do with “the establishment of a religion”. Establishing a religion means making a religion the official religion of a state. A blow against Sharia has nothing to do with establishing a religion.
Also, the right of every Muslim to practise their religion would be unaffected by the amendement, unless the practise, of necessity, requires Sharia laws to enable that practise. That is not true today. Muslims in the USA practise Islam without Sharia law.

The amendment to the “STATE” constitution (not CONGRESS, since you want to be literal) does not “RESPECT” the “ESTABLISHMENT” of a “RELIGION”… Thus fulfilling the requirement to ‘not respect the establishment of islam’…

but.. I don’t believe islam is “JUST” a “RELIGION”… confused yet?

“Sharia law includes dietary rules, rules on financial dealings etc. All of the normative interpretations of the Koran are covered by the term ‘sharia’.”

What is normal about what is contained in the quran? Are you a muslim? I’ll bet you are a convert who wants to prove his worth… or maybe, maybe you are a Baha’i…

“The amendment to the “STATE” constitution (not CONGRESS, since you want to be literal) does not “RESPECT” the “ESTABLISHMENT” of a “RELIGION”… Thus fulfilling the requirement to ‘not respect the establishment of islam’…”

Oh dear. I’m not sure you quite understand that the word “establishment” in the first amendment is a noun, not a verb. The catholic church is an establishment of religion. A protestant congregation from texas or a jewish congregation from new york are both establishments of religion. A mosque is an establishment of religion. Sharia “law” is an establishment of religion (as in an institution. I admit that’s stretching the noun a bit, but I believe it holds)

And the states are bound by it – see my response to #51 to learn why. You can disagree, but I know which side I’d be betting my money on when it reaches the nine judges in washington.

“but.. I don’t believe islam is “JUST” a “RELIGION”… confused yet?”

It’s a religion, and it has been one for 1400 or so years. Deal with it.

“Sharia law includes dietary rules, rules on financial dealings etc. All of the normative interpretations of the Koran are covered by the term ‘sharia’.”

Whether you happen to think it’s “normal” hardly matters, as long as muslims follow the laws of the land. Most mainstream holy books are basically bonkers, having largely been written between the bronze age and the crusades.

“Are you a muslim? I’ll bet you are a convert who wants to prove his worth… or maybe, maybe you are a Baha’i…”

“You can disagree, but I know which side I’d be betting my money on when it reaches the nine judges in washington.”

islam will be the test of tolerance, I have no doubt.. Here’s the thing that you must understand.. ‘establishment’ will become a verb as the ‘People’ decide for themselves what deserves to be allowed to establish any permanent existence on this planet..

I know, you want the People to chose slavery.. the injection of muslims brings about the end of ‘misunderstanding’ much quicker…

“It’s a religion, and it has been one for 1400 or so years. Deal with it. ”

It has been a totalitarian menace since its inception by mohammad.. who you seem to adore.. Don’t you care who burned down the Library of Alexandria and gutted it’s books?.. what a shame you hate Reason..

” of, relating to, or determining norms or standards ”
relate that to islamic standards.. are you dumb? you just made my case..

“Whether you happen to think it’s “normal” hardly matters, as long as muslims follow the laws of the land. Most mainstream holy books are basically bonkers, having largely been written between the bronze age and the crusades. ”

What do you consider ‘not bonkers’? Do you know the difference between a fruit and a thistle? Are you really that ignorant of modern books that are also bonkers? why are you choosing willful blindness? seems pretty un-boyscout like…

“Here’s the thing that you must understand.. ‘establishment’ will become a verb as the ‘People’ decide for themselves what deserves to be allowed to establish any permanent existence on this planet..”

Are you saying mob rule will break out and the constitution discarded? Or just that the english language will be warped so that a noun preceded by an indefinite article can be re-interpreted as a verb?

And “this planet” – what’s that about? Are you suggesting that genocide (or religicide?) is in the cards? Do you support that course of action?

“I know, you want the People to chose slavery.. the injection of muslims brings about the end of ‘misunderstanding’ much quicker…”

Slavery. Righto. I can’t imagine how you cope with the fear of things that might actually happen.

“It’s a religion, and it has been one for 1400 or so years. Deal with it. ”

“It has been a totalitarian menace since its inception by mohammad..”

And let me guess … this has only become apparent since 2001, right?

“who you seem to adore..”

I don’t see what you think that adds to the debate. I’m not a muslim, I have no particular admiration for mohammed. This discussion is about religious freedom, not what you can dream up to say about me.

“Don’t you care who burned down the Library of Alexandria and gutted it’s books?.. what a shame you hate Reason..”

Not really. It happened a while ago, you might recall. It IS a pity, absolutely – we might have access to a lot of old, interesting texts if it hadn’t been destroyed. But (apparently) unlike you, I wasn’t there to see who did it. There is ONE story about a caliph ordering the books destroyed, but it’s just a story and written hundreds of years after the fact. It’s also not the only story. We don’t actually know how the library was destroyed.

“relate that to islamic standards.. are you dumb? you just made my case..”

Again, just trying to be offensive doesn’t make you more convincing.

“What do you consider ‘not bonkers’?”

Not advocating the bashing of children’s heads against rocks. Not advocating handing your daughters over to bandits. Not telling fairy tales about how the universe was created or talking up genocide as an appropriate course of action. How’s that?

“Do you know the difference between a fruit and a thistle?”

The first one is sometimes edible, right?

“Are you really that ignorant of modern books that are also bonkers?”

Of course there are modern books that are bonkers. That doesn’t change the bonkers nature of most religious texts. I’m sure the koran is not unique in that regard. For a real laugh, read some of the stuff scientologists believe. I think it’s all complete rubbish – but they should still be allowed to practice their religion if it doesn’t cause anyone (else) any harm.

“Why does a mouthy Atheist care to defend a religion that clearly calls for the enslavement, conversion, or death of said mouthy Atheist?”

Because, as it is practiced by most muslims who live in the modern world, it doesn’t. It happens to be a dominant religion in some politically and economically very backward countries though, I’ll grant you that.

“Clearly it’s not about the defense of Reason…”

Hey – we’re talking about religion. Reason is a whole other topic.

“What is your point? Seems you are a pretty hopeless person…”

See? There it is again. At no point have I called you names. All I’ve done is engage with what you’ve written. You can’t seem avoid slinging abuse though.

And my point is that I believe everyone has the right to peacefully practice their religion as long as they don’t break any laws or harm anyone. And in your case it’s more than that – they have a constitutional RIGHT to do so. I don’t agree with their religion, and I don’t particularly like the compulsory indoctrination of children in any faith. But that’s not the point of this thread.

“Good Luck with the muslims you have, if you actually live ‘down under’… I’ve given you fair warning..”

I have no particular problem with the muslims we “have”. We do seem to have some problems with some recent refugees, but I think that has less to do with religion than the state of the places they’ve arrived from.

“I must commend you on your dogged ability to avoid any critical examination of islam in your efforts to shill for shariah… Bravo!!!”

If you’d like to make some criticism of islam that’s based in reality, then I’m happy to address it. Criticize its theology – I’ll probably agree with you. Criticize the politics of most muslim countries and we’ll be on the same page. But you just want to demonize muslims, regardless of who they are, what they’re like or where they’re from.

“You are good for a chuckle..”

Somehow I doubt that. You use a few too many pejoratives for somebody who’s having a chuckle.

Islam is not just a religion, you insistence that it is so shows your willful ignorance..

muslims are poor, both intellectually and in ‘wealth’ because of islam…

Again, your willful ignorance comes into play..

“but I think that has less to do with religion than the state of the places they’ve arrived from.”

Why are those places in that state?

The only reason muslims ever had a golden age is because Dhimmis (that would be slaves and permanent religious underclass) were still plentiful and contributing to islamic societies.. btw.. the yellow star label Hitler used is actually an islamic invention to label dhimmi Christians and Jews.. (uh oh, another islamonazi connection)

What ever happened to them? Just look at the Copts for an example..

islam brings it’s own ruin.. “Just a religion” Pffffft!

Your replies demonstrate to all here you really don’t know what you are talking about..

Thank You for your replies.. Everyone else gets to see your central need to support an evil creed and culture with no reason other than to find a way to define America and it’s freedoms as a suicide pact..

Mathew, You ignored the two substantial points: First, “Establishing a religion means making a religion the official religion of a state.” See “Establishment” in Wikipedia. The Catholic Church is established in the Vatican and Argentina. That was what the 1st Amendment was originally all about. The Oklahoma Amemdment is in the clear on that issue.
Second, Muslims do not need Sharia to practise their religion, as is obvious from the fact that they practise without Sharia being the law of the land. So they do have freedom of religion without it. Are you saying that every Muslim who has ever lived in a country without Sharia law has been denied freedom of religion?

Great Job, Zombie. You did an outstanding job of clarifying the issues in a way that is clear enough for a public forum. You have greatly advanced the level of public discussion of these very important issues.

That Volokh article is very interesting, but I think Eugene slightly misrepresents the issue at hand:

In his example, American courts must consider legal rulings in foreign countries when foreign residents come to the U.S. and bring along with them some “legal leftovers” from their life in the foreign country — a half-finished divorce, a pending child-custody case, and so on. In his one specific example, he discusses a U.S. marriage case dependent on a ruling made earlier in Jordan, a country which (in theory at least) Sharia law is followed as the national law. And so Eugene says that the US court had no choice but to consider Sharia law in this particular circumstance.

I say No, and here’s why:

What the court considered in this case was Jordanian law, not Sharia law. The purported “version” of Sharia followed in Jordan is much different than the “version” they follow in Saudi Arabia or Iran or Somalia or wherever. Many strict Muslims would tell you that Jordan doesn’t really follow Sharia law, just a watered-down/Sunni/corrupted/mollified version. But all of that is irrelevant to the American court’s point of view: All we need to known is that it is the law of a nation called Jordan. It’s not important where they claim they’re getting the law.

Are there rare circumstances in which American courts must take into account the laws of foreign countries, because foreigners come here already entangled in a life-long trail of legal complications? Yes. But in each case we are considering the law of that country, which is invariably specific to that country. We are not taking into account some idealized transnational perfect “Islamic law,” because in practice, there is no such thing agreed upon by all nations. Must US courts on occasion consider Jordanian law? Yes. Does it matter to us what the Jordanians claim is the inspiration for their law? No.

Now, in some Al Qaeda fantasy, one day there will be a transnational Caliphate spanning the globe, subsuming all existing nation-states, and that Caliphate will (in the fantasy) follow a pure “Sharia.” And when that happens, then perhaps yes, US courts would have to take into account Sharia law. But that day hasn’t arrived, and more importantly, if it did arrive, there would no longer be any US courts or United States at all, so it would be a moot point.

And, there is no such as “incorporation” (a power that federal judges supposedly have…only they don’t, becauses federal judges don’t have the power to do anything until that power is delegated to them by the Constitution). What there is is a law that says Congress (only) can’t pass a law respecting an establishment of religion, and another law that says the states have the power to do anything not forbidden to the states by the Constitution.

Congress can’t pass a law respecting an establishment of religion, the states can. That’s what the Supreme Law of the Land says…whether halfwit judges like it or not.

Yes, the 14th Amendment has incorporated most of the Bill of Rights against the states through a bizarre doctrine known as selective incorporation. We tried to persuade the Supreme Court to do what the writers of the 14th Amendment intended–full incorporation–but only Justice Thomas was prepared to buy that in the McDonald v. Chicago (2010).

However: the meaning of the establishment clause has been pretty seriously warped by the courts. See here for an examination of the problem.

Good article, I agree with everything you suggest except limitting the battle to these few albeit very strong positions.

I like the wolf-pack approach better where Islam is attacked from every conceivable angle, this has the effect of forcing them to defend themselves everywhere and every step they take becomes a legal battle.
Oppose them as a threat to national and public safety: Criminal, Anti-terror, and Sedition Laws
Oppose them as a threat to local character: Zoning Laws
Oppose them as a threat to citizens rights: Civil rights Act and Anti-discrimination Laws
Oppose them philosophically and intellectually: Bankrupt ideas and distorted history
Oppose them economically: Trade sanctions against state supporters, boycotts of businesses
Oppose them publicly: Use history and their psychotic texts to form undeniable association that Islam is Evil, always has been and always will be.
Stigmatize Islam to the point that no one would readily choose it, defend it, or want to be part of it and you will have defeated it because only a very small majority would remain.
Break through every social barrier with an overwhelming wave of evidence of actions and the linkage to the Koran, Surrah…
Recognize that Islam is our enemy and act appropriately, it will not end on its own, nor will it get better. It’s a problem that must be cured at its source like Fascism and Japanese Imperialism..

I must disagree that the law was not needed. The law is needed – and this from a person who thinks we have too many laws as it is.

Even though the US constitution is the supreme law of the land, any non-lawyer looking at the supreme court Kelo v. City of New London ruling would say that was unconstitutional – and yet it happened anyway. As a consequence many states enacted stronger language within the state constitutions to try to prevent the miscarriage of the law.

Then we have the illegal immigration situation – the US government refuses to enforce its own rules – who gets to decide which rules get enforced. And this appears bi-partisan. Then they sue Arizona for attempting to enforce the rules – what gives here. So when sharia creeps further into our society, and the feds decide not to enforce the constitution, a nice state law will be handy to have.

And, although I really hate to say this – Matthew makes a couple of valid points. As stated previously, the US constitution is the supreme law of the land, so states may not make laws that are in conflict with the the US constitution; however, I don’t think this law violates the establishment clause. I do think Islam is a special case that the US will struggle with for many years – the issue to me is that Islam is much more than a religion. Muslims are using, very effectively, our religious freedoms to introduce and defend their practices. But Islam is also a government structure that is at odds with our own. A battle is most certain at some point.

“Replace the occurrences of “sharia law” in that amendment with “the ten commandments” and ask yourself whether you think it’s constitutional.”

Totally fine. A judge can’t sentence someone to prison for working on the Sabbath unless there is a federal, state or local law forbidding it. The fact that there is a prohibition against working on the Sabbath in the Ten Commandmnets means diddly in our courts.

2.) This part of the law “provided the law of the other state does not include Sharia Law” appears to violate Article 4 Section 1 of the United States Constitution…

“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”

If state A wants to enact a provision of Sharia Law in it’s state law, state B has to respect that, and Congress can pass laws to make states respect the Acts and judicial proceedings of other states.

So, they need to rewrite state question 755 and try again, because it will get struck down on those grounds eventually. Also, a law without a remedy or penalty is a mistake. They need to add a remedy or a penalty so the law will have some teeth, and you’ll know how to proceed if someone breaks it.

Other than that, it looks o.k. to me. The claim that it violates the 1A is a lot of hogwash.

In Scott v Sandford, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court opined that under the Constitution, black people were…

“beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

Or, to put it another way…judges say all kinds of wacky crap that ain’t true.

Uh, no. The various colonies long discriminated based on religion, and even into the 1830s, some states still had establishments of religion (taxes funding particular church denominations). The federal government was limited in its authority by the First Amendment’s establishment clause, but it was not clear that this prohibited discrimination based on religion–but sought only to prevent any one Christian church was enjoying advantages that others did not enjoy. The establishment clause today is held by the courts to prohibit any governmental advantage to a particular church. Prohibiting the courts from using sharia law is actually closer to the notion of the establishment clause than the pro-Islamist view that has taken over in the academic community.

Great little essay.
What astounds the hell out of me is that 30% of the voters in Oklahoma voted to ALLOW sharia law!!
I have a theory. Up here in Canada, we have just elected a Mooslim mayor in Calgary. He was elected, so the story goes, by the clever use of this contraption
we’re on…..this “social network”.
I am not one to talk about voting…I have personally been historically apathetic.
This apathy problem is rampant both in Canada and the U.S. of A.
If certain groups, such as CAIR or any of it’s illbred types put a concerted effort to garner voters through the internet, the free west could face some very dangerous election results if these Mooslims can organize huge voting blocks using this method.
I can see this coming as sure as hell.
They have the resolve to pull it off if we, the MAJORITY, stay complacent. We very well might stay complacent until it’s too late. The media sure doesn’t help. They don’t report any thing that they feel is ISLAMAPHOBIC. Islam is the modern version of 1930′s National Socialism…AKA Nazis.

Catino, I don’t think you should compare the Jehovah Witnesses with the brutally repressive, absolutely totalitarian Mad Pig Shariah of the Muslims.

The Jehovah Witnesses don’t have suicide bombers; old male perverts forcing underage little girls to “marry” them, and then legally raping them to “consummate” the “marriage contract,” relegating women to second class; murdering apostates; hanging homosexuals; whipping old ladies for minor “indiscretions;” stoning women to death for adultery; legalized hypocrisy; and much more. However, under Mad Pig Shariah, the evil Muslims implement these barbaric laws.

Do you want me to explain “legalized hypocrisy” of Muslims? Okay: The depraved Muslim male sex perverts can commit adultery with impunity when they “marry” many so-called wives. If Muslim women pulled this stunt, they would be stoned to death. Talk about hypocrisy.

Islam is the biggest threat to our republic. It needs to be opposed at every turn. The idea of moderate Islam dies not stand up under scrutiny. The larger the percentage of the population the more they demand. We need to stop allowing the Saudis to build mosques in this country. This is much more than a religion it is a theocracy by stealth. The link below is to the most reasoned argument I have read on why Sharia is unconstitutional

It is very difficult for me to accept that the Liberals do not know any better.
I think it’s a matter of staying on the gravy train, or better yet, Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Most commonly known as CYA.

Hands down, this is the best argument that I have heard against Sharia Law. I live in Oklahoma and even though we are arguably the most conservative state in the union, you would be amazed at how many comments I received on my own blog, arguing the case against our amendment. Your list blows every one of them out of the water.

‘The court finds that the plaintiff has shown that he will suffer an injury in fact, specifically, an invasion of his First Amendment rights which is concrete,” Miles-LaGrange’

Well, Miss Vicki, is, to put it bluntly, a fatuous idiot who ought to be impeached.

There’s only one right mentioned in the First Amendment and that’s the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This law is obviously not going to prevent anyone from exercising that right, and Miss Vicki’s opinion is obviously, purest baloney.

This is the kind of nonsense we can expect if we continue to let quasi-literate leftist trash into our courtrooms where they can masquerade as judges: Dimbulbs who think that living under Sharia Law is somehow an individual right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Last month, 70% of the voters in Oklahoma approved State Question 755, which bans Sharia law (and international law) from being used in the state’s legal system.

Well of course. That is, I agree and believe this will prevail.

However what about a separate set of Sharia courts, to which members might “voluntarily” submit by signed contract? Something like this would certainly be legal, but I wonder what the boundaries would be.

Just to be clear – whatever they are, they should be tightened to the extreme in the case of Islam, more or less as if it were a flying-saucer, kool-aid drinking cult such that it is a mark of insanity to sign such a contract in the first place, and thus unenforceable if anyone objects – which I assume they would. Just say three times, “I divorce thee Islam”. After which any attempt at enforcement would itself be nine kinds of crime.

How about civil arbitration courts? When rowan williams made his comments a few years back about sharia being inevitable, that’s what he was talking about. It’s how beth din operates in many countries now – e.g. australia, britain, no idea about the US. Claimants have to agree to the process, they can’t be forced, rulings CAN’T override statutory rights (in australia you can’t use any agreement or contract to surrender any protections you have under law). They don’t ever deal in criminal matters. Usually these courts deal with business disputes, financial dealings, family disputes. Labeling of kosher/halal goods also have their own authorities (which have varying degrees of statutory recognition depending on where you are). I guess beth din probably has to deal with disputes over that from time to time.

I believe (but I admit I’m no expert) that any binding rulings have to be notarized by a civil courts magistrate. Maybe any lawyers in the crowd can comment.

I just don’t see what the big deal is. I believe there are already sharia “courts” of that sort operating in the UK, and I’d be surprised if there aren’t a couple in australia. We can outlaw them or we can regulate them, but we can’t do both – I’d rather we regulate them. Then at least we’ll know a bit about how they operate and the impact they have. After all … it is perfectly legal for two parties to ask a third to adjudicate a disagreement, isn’t it? Are we doing to say they can’t do that if the adjudicator is a muslim?

It claims that amrozi can still enjoy his family. That’s interesting, because he was executed in 2008.

Yep. Then it shows the meeting with the mufti. We’ve already talked about that.

Ah, yes, a made-to-order nutjob “sheikh” from sydney. Very good. He’s in hiding now, I understand. Have you come across the name “fred phelps” by chance? How about pat robertson?

Then it misrepresents hilaly a bit. He’s a kook, but I think he’s a fairly harmless kook.

Oooh, then it gets a bit dishonest about the riots in western sydney in 2005. You might recall pictures of racist cretins prancing around kronulla beach with stupid slogans and flags painted on their chests, looking for a fight – and picking fights when they couldn’t find any (including with a couple of ambulance drivers, from memory). We had a couple of popular radio celebrities talking it up for days beforehand, trying to get a crowd on the beach for a rumble. It was a pretty appalling display all around. Afterward there was rioting – partly by second-generation lebanese youfs, and partly by nationalist thugs. That didn’t come out of nowhere. We had one particularly unpleasant individual in our federal parliament in the 90′s who liked to talk about “asians not assimilating” and stoking racism – and conservative MPs took that initiative and ran with it, winning at least one election purely on the back of demonizing refugees. The lebs (and not all muslim) sure as heck didn’t start that day’s nastiness, but they did participate, absolutely. But anyone who claims that was part of some “jihad” basically knows nothing about the event.

After that there’s a typical talkback law-and-order call-in. Yep. Somebody was threatened by youfs while driving. That’s sad, it shouldn’t have happened. But … of all the stories of violence, or the threat thereof, recorded in sydney since 2005, the only one in the video involves a group of muslims. Crikey. You should see what our football players get up to.

I don’t find it compelling. Sorry. The problem is that I’ve met too many muslims to buy the scare-stories. There are creeps and nutjobs everywhere. They are rare.

Oh, just wanted to make sure you have a quran and hadiths to read as you figure out what islam is really about.. This link provides a tri-translation of the quran, so you can be sure it’s an ‘officially’ recognized resource..

You didn’t read the post, did you? Or if you did, you ignored it. You just looked for keywords so you could do your barracking.

“The big deal is that we have a constitution that guarantees our liberties and folks like you like to practice how to erode those rights.”

And once again, somebody here completely misses the irony of their own commentary. Should christians be allowed to ask a representative of a church to negotiate in business or family disputes? Should jews be allowed to authorize inspectors to certify kosher food producers, and consider appeals on those decisions? Should hindus be allowed to appoint a suitable priest to negotiate a wedding or a divorce? Yes, yes, yes? Then tell me why muslims shouldn’t.

“Please..if it is no big deal, move yourself to the paradise that is the middle east.”

Again, the angle you’re taking on this is highly ironic. Saudi arabia’s famously keen on stamping out competing religions and the customs as well. Maybe you’d be more comfortable in riyadh?

First the article implies that if the Sharia law is unconstitutional then the proposed Oklahoma amendment is constituional. But there isn’t any relevance of is the Sharia law constitutional. There have been no attempts made to make it a part of the law of the United States. But the Oklahoma law is being made a law of the United States and so its constitutionality is in question. So don’t for one second think you can sidestep the real issue of the constitutionality of that law by saying the Sharia is unconstitutional.

The text of the amendment:

> This measure amends the State Constitution. It changes a section that deals with the courts of this state. It would amend Article 7, Section 1. It makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law.

> International law is also known as the law of nations. It deals with the conduct of international organizations and independent nations, such as countries, states and tribes. It deals with their relationship with each other. It also deals with some of their relationships with persons.

> The law of nations is formed by the general assent of civilized nations. Sources of international law also include international agreements, as well as treaties.

> Sharia Law is Islamic law. It is based on two principal sources, the Koran and the teaching of Mohammed.

> First amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now prove that this law is constitutional. It singles one specific religion and says no laws may derive from it. This law does not say don’t make laws based on religion, it says don’t make them based on the religion of Islam. That is the same as the Oklahoma government saying Islam is worse than any other religion and that is not acceptable. And that is why Muslims are fighting against that law.

Secondly the law effectively says the state of Oklahoma may break any treaties the federal government passed with foreign governments. The people most affected by this law are not Muslims but rather Native Americans. Article 1 section 8 places that power in the hands of the federal government. So again it is unconstitutional for Oklahoma to say they do not have to abide by that law.

On the the actual points: 1 and 2 are the same thing and they are good points for why Sharia is incompatible with the American constitution. But again there isn’t even the question of that, no one is trying to make laws in Oklahoma based on Sharia. In point one the author tried to hide an argument for why this law should be allowed, because it repeats what is already the law. It shouldn’t because this law by singling out one religion is breaking the constitution.

Point 3 again no one is trying to make sharia a part of American law. But 3 and 4 raise the question what about Sharia that is not unconstitutional. Sharia says get two witnesses, does that mean all US patent applications signed by two witnesses are invalid. The sharia says donate 2.5% of your wealth to charity, is that donation illegal. Can property taxes not be set at a value of 2.5%? The author does not think so, but the thing is in the presence of said law these ridiculous objections against a law become reasonable. The author specifically says that private contracts are unaffected but are they. If someone has a will saying distribute my wealth according to the Islamic laws of inheritance what is the court supposed to do with that? Are they supposed to say that we cannot act on Sharia law so the person’s will is invalid and the person will be treated according to the US law on someone that dies intestate. Is a Muslim preacher disallowed from marrying a man and a woman? These are all restrictions on the freedom of religion that the proposed law may cause. Oh and nice implication there saying all Muslims are cruel and vicious and I don’t really believe it if they decide to voluntarily resolve their disputes according to Islam.

Point 5 is again point 3, except it loses all pretensions of not doing exactly what the author said he won’t do, basically appeal to pity.

So really these arguments are utter bullshit. They don’t address the issues at hand, and try to paint Muslims as fanatics trying to take over American Liberties while all they are trying to do is defend their constitutional right when they oppose this law.

The constitution is not a suicide pact…
Choosing to be muslim is choosing to not be American at all…

What is wrong with defining islam as the ‘worst’ of all? What’s wrong with a reality based designation of an ideology that is a world wide failure and incubator of hate?
===========
Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen?

Consider this:

Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.

Scripturally, no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically, no, because he is instructed he may marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)

Intellectually, no, because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically, no, because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually, no, because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran’s 99 excellent names.

Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both good Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish…it’s still the truth. If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country.

The constitution is not a suicide pact…
Choosing to be muslim is choosing to not be American at all…

What is wrong with defining islam as the ‘worst’ of all? What’s wrong with a reality based designation of an ideology that is a world wide failure and incubator of hate?
===========
Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen?

Consider this:

Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.

Scripturally, no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically, no, because he is instructed he may marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)

Intellectually, no, because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically, no, because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually, no, because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran’s 99 excellent names.

Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both good Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish…it’s still the truth. If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country.

———————————-

Our Constitution is purely secular, the words “Under God” appear zero times in the constitution.

I agree with many of these points..however.

Islam is incompatible, Christianity is in a similar boat.

Religion should never mix with government in any regard, period. Only in the respect that, the seperation of Church and State remains intact. Having the text “In God We Trust” and swearing on the bible is unconstitutional. As is having the words “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is also, again, unconstitutional. It doesn’t matter that the majority follow Jesus here, what matters is keeping what our forefathers stood for, and what they intended to create.

I’d also like to see the tax exempt status of the Churches to be stripped, it would be a fairly good source of revenue, as it currently acts as essentially, a subsidy.

“Secondly the law effectively says the state of Oklahoma may break any treaties the federal government passed with foreign governments.”

No, it doesn’t say any such thing. Treaties are, by definition part of United States law, and the Oklahoma law, as well as the United States Constitution, says that judges MUST follow United States law.

To repeat what Zombie has already cited…

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

What the Oklahoma law says in effect is is that a judge can’t point to some provision of international law that hasn’t been made part of United States law by treaty (or by some other method) and use that as the basis of a decision…and that’s the way it ought to be.

“If someone has a will saying distribute my wealth according to the Islamic laws of inheritance what is the court supposed to do with that? Are they supposed to say that we cannot act on Sharia law so the person’s will is invalid and the person will be treated according to the US law on someone that dies intestate.”

What the OK law says is that if you die intestate a judge can’t use the laws in Iran as a basis to allocate the assets of the estate. A judge has to use Oklahoma law, not Iranian law. That’s all it says. The law in question doesn’t try to tell people how to allocate their estates in their wills, it just tells judges what they can and can’t do in a courtroom.

Ali:
Try and memorize Van Grungy’s fabulous post. Also some of Dave Surls’.
Muslims ARE fanatics who want to take over American liberties.
They are sneaking, lying, 2 faced people who will stop at nothing to forward their agenda. They have no choice. This is what their Koran instructs them to do.
The scary part is they are damned good at it!
Churchill compared the Koran to Mien Kaumpf…the modern Islamic movement is worse than the Nazi’s in the early 1930′s.
I am Canadian…but if my big brother to the south falls under Islam, the whole world will soon follow. Red China might have something to say about that, but by then it will be China against the rest of the world.
I hope the United States can hold the line. NO SHARIA…EVER!

Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.

I tend to take that as a comment on its style. It’s an interesting choice, though.

Churchill said and wrote lots of things. He also changed his mind a lot. He once opined at length on the number of jews leading the bolshevics in russia:

There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews, it is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders.

In an unpublished essay (rediscovered in 2007), he wrote:

It would be easy to ascribe it to the wickedness of the persecutors, but that does not fit all the facts. It exists even in lands, like Great Britain and the United States, where Jew and Gentile are equal in the eyes of the law, and where large numbers of Jews have found, not only asylum, but opportunity. These facts must be faced in any analysis of anti-Semitism. They should be pondered especially by the Jews themselves. For it may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution – that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer.

The central fact which dominates the relations of Jew and non-Jew is that the Jew is ‘different’. He looks different. He thinks differently. He has a different tradition and background. He refuses to be absorbed. In every country the Jews form a distinct and separate community – a little state within the state.

Those sound pretty racist, don’t they? But they’re misleading.

It would be a very big mistake to think, on the basis of these two quotes, that churchill had a problem with jews. He didn’t (and neither do I, so don’t try that game). If you google those quotes, you’ll find that he contradicts that conclusion in the very same article(s). Churchill was up to his eyeballs in international politics, and was a complex character. At one time or another, churchill had a problem with just about everyone. Look up what he had to say about gandhi sometime.

My point (I guess I have one) is that quote mining isn’t ultimately a very sensible approach to argument. Particularly when it comes to somebody like winston churchill.

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
===
Notice how he points out that the Faith is separate from the Person, who might be nice on an individual basis… but the Faith makes those persons ‘evil’
Islam exists, slavery exists… Yet another fact you can’t deny..
Just thought I’d mine the whole quote.. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much…

I did have to do some googling to get the words, but I read about them in 2007.

but nothing about simple ‘observation’ is racist..

I’m not sure that either of those quotes is “just” observation but, like I said, they’re out of context.

Notice how he points out that the Faith is separate from the Person, who might be nice on an individual basis… but the Faith makes those persons ‘evil’

You’re putting words in his mouth. I don’t see where in that Churchill says ‘evil’ or anything like it. He says it’s regressive and holding its adherents back (and he might have even been right), but I don’t think he’s saying they’re evil.

And it seems to me that you’re still trying to justify your Godwin, and that quote doesn’t really help your case.

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.” separation between person and faith…

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”
—
dreadful curses (muslims are the original victims of islam)

fanatical frenzy (islam’s inculcation of bloodlust)

dangerous as a dog infected with rabies “Rabies, especially a set of symptoms of the later stages of an infection, in which the victim has difficulty swallowing, shows panic when presented with liquids to drink, and cannot quench his or her thirst.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobia (chaotic evil)

Improvident habits (islam destroys imagination)

slovenly systems of agriculture (nothing has changed)

sluggish methods of commerce (shariah finance)

insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. (ain’t that the truth.. just ask Copts and Assyrian Christians for recent examples)

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. (so many prohibitions, so little time)

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
(slavery.. not just women either.. mohammad owned slaves, thus slavery is halal.. “what your right hand possesses”)

1.Enjoy polygamy (Quran 4:3)
2.Kill non-Muslims wherever you find them (Quran 9:5)
3.Prohibit and desecrate other religions (Quran 109:1-6)
4.Intercourse with concubines/female slaves (Quran 24:33)
5.Cut off the hands of thieves (non-Muslim) (Quran 5:38)
6.Beat your wives (Quran 4:34)
7.Desecrate holy books other than the Quran (Quran 2:79)
8.Circumambulate seven times around Kaaba as the Pagans did and do (Quran 2:158)
9.Loot the properties of your enemies, kill them and rape their widows (Quran 8:69-70)
10.Don’t question or think logically; just do as you are told (5:101-102)

Boy oh boy does this ever sound like something a sane person would want to apply in their daily life…you betcha!

@J F Hickey If I may point out one very glaring problem with your statement as I read it. To enter into a contract as in agreement with another party, even for the purpose of settling disagreement, still is subject to the laws and regulations of the Constitution of the US. No other law may trump, OR AGREEMENT may ever authorize, or strip inaliable rights from anyone within the borders of the US or any of its holdings found to be a citizen or visitor status of legal stature. Sharia…is NOT LAW here in the US under any circumstances that violate the US constitution. Sharia does not merrit any consideration because it is a subversionary effort on the authority of the US Constitution. There is no way around this.

Matthew…sort of like the same rant as reflected in the Koran???
“Just an opinion: it’s a really crap book. I did open a copy out of curiosity when I was back at uni. The translation was full of spelling and grammatical errors, and it’s basically just a seething paranoid rant. It will disappoint its readers. I am ecumenical, though – I can also report that mao’s little red book is tedious dogma, and gaddafi’s green books are insane.”

Matthew…tell me true…
do you really think the practice of Islam causes no one (else) any harm…? Do you REALLY believe that ridiculous sentence from your mouth?
That remark has to be one of the most absurd things I have seen on ANY site I have frequented in the last 3 years or more. Are you living in the Twilight Zone?

>”For a real laugh, read some of the stuff scientologists believe. I think it’s all complete rubbish – but they should still be allowed to practice their religion if it doesn’t cause anyone (else) any harm.”

He’s a fixture at a single mosque in western Sydney, and a more-or-less self-appointed one at that. He’s a divisive figure even within the lakemba community, let alone Sydney, let alone Australia. He lost a lot of support after his ‘uncovered meat’ comments, and really embarrassed himself after a security camera filmed him damaging mosque property before calling the police to report vandalism. Like I said, a kook. But I still think he’s a fairly harmless one.

A ‘kook’ to you, an orthodox muslim to me..
Would you provide a link to Aussie muslims denouncing him as unislamic?

“really embarrassed himself after a security camera filmed him damaging mosque property before calling the police to report vandalism.”

muslims do have a pattern of fabricating hate crimes… like that Portland Oregon mosque that had a mysterious fire that only destroyed the mosque records office after a muslim member tried to kill Christians at a tree lighting ceremony.. I’m sure there is no connection whatsoever LOL

Against these negligible voices of protests, however, the overwhelming majority of the Australian Muslims have clearly given their solid support to the truth spoken by the learned Mufti. The controversial sermon was first delivered in a congregation of 500 worshippers and not a single voice of protest was raised from amongst them for more than a month. After the Mufti was thrown into the hot soup upon the publication of his sermon in English in the “The Australian” newspaper, the next Friday’s weekly congregational prayer attracted a huge 5,000 worshippers who came to lend a solid support to the Mufti. He came out of the prayer like an “elated rock-star” surrounded by 200 avid supporters.

—

I preempted you.. Not a ‘kook’.. A respected and supported muslim leader..

I need to get some sleep. It’s 2:26 AM. But here are some links that will get you started. Hilaly’s antics really have put him offside with a lot of people. I believe he’s no longer in his previous position at lakemba, having apparently decided that it wasn’t in everyone’s best interests. He’s anything but mainstream.

Commence sophistry … Now. I’ll read whatever excuse you come up with for why none of that counts tomorrow. Maybe they have to denounce more strenuously? While standing on one leg? In the key of C major? I’m looking forward to reading it.

@Matthew, I don’t think that linking to Irfan Yusuf (planetirf) is a good way to bring attention to yourself. Irf is a professional go-to guy, just as Keysar

Regarding dv stats, I suspect that we all know that the police and other agencies aren’t supposed to allow any information out that might threaten the multi-culti paradise paradigm that is Oz.

For a muslim woman to speak out means that she will make muslims and hence islam look bad. That’s a BIG nono.

As for Hilali, he’s still got a ton of authority – he’s just not supposed to go on the meeja to tell us kuffar what’s what. We might wake up to the fact that he’s deadly serious about what he says, and can back himself up with the quran and the hadiths.

The question was: do any muslims condemn hilaly’s comments. The answer is obviously yes. You can google as many instances of it as you want, they’re not rare. Hilaly has never had any real authority outside of his community, and even there he became divisive some time ago.

As you’d probably know if you followed events as closely as you imply.

The Prophet stayed for three days at a place between Khaibar and Medina, and there he consummated his marriage with Safiyya bint Huyay. I invited the Muslims to a banquet which included neither meat nor bread. The Prophet ordered for the leather dining sheets to be spread, and then dates, dried yogurt and butter were provided over it, and that was the Walima (banquet) of the Prophet. The Muslims asked whether Safiyya would be considered as his wife or as a slave girl of what his right hands possessed. Then they said, “If the Prophet screens her from the people, then she Is the Prophet’s wife but if he does not screen her, then she is a slave girl.” So when the Prophet proceeded, he made a place for her (on the camel) behind him and screened her from people.

“under Islamic law, where the best interests of the child have no relevance whatsoever: shariah dictates that no Muslim child may be permanently legally adopted by anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim. That is why, as the Post rightly notes, Muslim orphan children are left “with little chance of finding a permanent Muslim home in America.” Because of shariah. Because of Islamic law.”

Oh crap.. another reason to disallow any shariah at all..

I guess America will just have to pay for muslim only orphanages.. No “Mufti Jihadinars” (Daddy Warbucks) for the orphan muslim children..

The more we learn about shariah, the more we all realize that the ideology that spawns shariah needs to be expunged from America..

The only effective solution to keeping the USA from becoming dominated by the political ideology called Islam is to deport all Muslims and permanently ban Muslim (IPP) immigration.

The ouster is constitutional because the deportation and ban are for political, not religious, reasons – To Uphold and Defend the US Constitution.

“The Islamic Political Party” (IPP) is the name I use to describe the political party whose primary foci are =
1) To struggle and abtain Global Overthrow of all other parties and peoples by any means necessary.
2) To establish a cast system making men the supreme cast and making women and children a sub-human lower cast.
3) To eliminate worship of all gods except the god worshiped in the Islamic Religion.
4) To replace all other laws with sharia which removes many inalienable rights held by all humans.

The Islamic Political Party (IPP) exists for these purposes only. And since their platform requires, by a matter of course, elimination of the US Constitution and the Nation of The United States Of America, the IPP is an immediate sworn enemy of the USA which merits immediate deportation and all future immigration banned.

This applies to the “Loving, Friendly, Honorable, Westernized, Natural Born Citizen, Best Friend” Muslim (IPP Member). While they may not appear to be actively taking part in the attack on the US nation and US Constitution, the fact that they consider themselves Muslims means they are a proud member of the Islamic Political Party, which is. (Remember, Muslims in the USA have the right to change political parties at will, they do not have to remain in the IPP. Unfortunately for them, their challenge is, IPP rules and regulations require that members who leave the party be killed on sight for insulting the Party Leadership).

The Time Is Now – In 2005 there were 4.82 Million Muslims (IPP Members) in the USA, or 1.6% of the total US Population. So, about 2% of the US population is ALREADY making very negative political impacts on the USA. Just look to Europe today to see what happens when IPP’s gather in larger percentages in a single country.

I totally agree with you, as radical as that sounds. The problem with doing this is with logistics. How do you think it could be undertaken? Also, what politician or group of politicians would have the balls to impliment such an enormous undertaking?
This sharia creep has to be crushed. The longer it takes the the more difficult it will be to make it happen.
While the world waits for the “moderates” to rise up and clean the house of Islam, it’s not happening due to the fact that everything that the radiacls do is written in their koran. The Koran is full of this shit. Kill, kill, kill.
So the “moderates” are sitting back and letting the radicals do the dirty work, in my humble opinion. The “moderates” are just a fallacy and are part of the over all Islamic agenda.

So … on an individual level, how do you determine if somebody is a member of this party?

Serious question. You reckon that idea is constitutional? Fine – tell us how you implement it (which means legislation) without reference to islam

Meanwhile, I’m not sure the fed’s attempts in the 50′s to ban the communist party were particularly successful. A law was passed, but on the rare occasions that it was applied, the courts seemed to think it was unconstitutional. So I’m not sure your anti-IPP measure is going to hold up well.

http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=28832
A MUSLIM girl caught between her religion, her parents and wanting to be a typical Aussie teenager is at the centre of an apprehended violence order against her father after he found she had a boyfriend.
======

You’ve officially hit rock-bottom. An AVO against a muslim. Wow. Do you have any idea how many AVOs are issued annually here? I believe it’s well over 20,000. If you’d like to do a systematic study of the circumstances of each and give us a chart according to whatever prejudices you have in mind, then I’m all eyes. But this cherry-picking stuff is tedious.

And I wouldn’t be getting so much of my information about what muslims believe from an anti-muslim web site, any more than I’d use The Protocols as a primary reference about jusaism (although I can recommend rabbi telushkin’s books). It’s not hard to find the primary sources, so how about checking those out. It might take you more than a day, though.

But feel free to keep being an embarrassment to your cause. I’ll just gently point out that muslims don’t even rate a line-item in the stats about violence against women in the west. We whiteys already did that perfectly well before immigration – and we still do. Heck – our TV celebrities and football players get more headlines for assaulting women than muslims do.

As far as I’m concerned, you lost this argument yesterday and you’ve just been digging a hole since. You tried to call me a nazi because I advocate religious freedom – yes, even for religions that I personally have no time for (and that’s most of them). You tried to concoct a vast theory about islam informing nazism rather than just admit your mistake, and I handed your backside to you on a plate. Now you’re just whining. But by all means continue. If you say something REALLY daft I might pop in and respond. Cherry-picking and quote-mining alone won’t do it, though.

I wish you’d go back to cooking up nonsense about europe in WWII. I was enjoying that. You apparently don’t know enough to realise when you’ve googled a mistake.

“The accused then stated, as the boyfriend would not be going to jail, the only thing left to do was kill his daughter and himself,” police said.

From link…
====

You handed nothing to me… You can’t, your kitchen of history is deficient…

btw… muslim women don’t speak out against the quran which allows women to be abused.. to do so is to invite accusations of apostasy…

Why is that web site called Vlad Tepes… Do you know who was worse? The Ottoman Turds who were so vicious and ruthless, Vlad had to match their monstrosities just so those Ottoman Turds would think twice about invading..

Vlad Tepes is a Christian hero who has been denigrated by propagandists…

Of course, all muslims belong to a separate nation from Australia.. the Islamic Ummah..

THE CAIRO DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISLAM

The Member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,

Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith; and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies and to provide solutions to the chronic problems of this materialistic civilization.

Wishing to contribute to the efforts of mankind to assert human rights, to protect man from exploitation and persecution, and to affirm his freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah

ARTICLE 24:

All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.

ARTICLE 25:

The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.

Fools like Matthew are clearly in a serious state of denial regarding the history, the nature and the intent of Islam. I’ve responded to this persistently wooden-headed apologist with the following material, none of which he has been able to gainsay, and none of which can be denied. The history (there’s that ‘history’ bit again, Matty) of Islam’s practitioners speaks for itself. The bottom line is that Islam is the existential enemy of Western civilization. I’ve invited Matty-boy to read Dr. Andrew Bostom’s work to get a sense of the Islamic mindset and what its ascendancy might mean for the rest of us:

Then there’s another one of Lee Harris’ outstanding works which delivers a sense of why and how the West’s days may be numbered. We are our own worst enemy unless we face up to the hard choices necessary to remain free and prosperous.

If anyone is still having trouble wrapping their mind around the fact that Western civilization does in fact have mortal and existential enemies, take a quick turn through Lee Harris’ Civilization and Its Enemies

Islam is not so much a religion as it is a supremacist political ideology (no ‘separation of church and state here, eh?), a destructive meme impervious to moderation or change, and with a narrowly circumscribed set of rituals that define every aspect of its followers’ lives. As for ‘tolerance’, here’s a quote from the Muslim Brotherhood and their mission in the U.S, calling for…

“…a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Speaking to the ‘religion of peace,” assertion that we hear from Muslims and ignorant (yes, ignorant) Westerners like Matty, when Muslims assert that Islam is a “religion of peace” they are not engaging in al taqqiya, they are actually making an assertion in good faith.

The problem lies in the fact that Islam has, from the Western point of view, a defective concept of peace. In semitic languages like Arabic, the consonants are the “root” of the word: islam = submission, and salam = peace have the same root, slm.

The only concept of peace in Islamic jurisprudence is the peace between the conqueror and the conquered, between master and slave. There is no concept of a negotiated peace between nations in Islamic law (and note that law is the defining property of Islam—their clerics are jurists, schools of Qu’ranic interpretation are called fiqh, a legalistic term)—Muslims may negotiate a “hudna” or armistice of limited duration with non-Muslim, but not a definitive enduring peace.

In that regard, Islam was, is and will be if it is allowed to continue, a serial murderer of entire cultures and peoples. This is what Islam has done throughout its entire 1400 year history. This is what it has done whenever it has finally gotten the upper hand in whatever culture is has opposed. This is what has been inextricably interwoven into the ‘DNA’ of its ‘operating system’. Those whom Islam does not destroy, it enslaves, diminishes and impoverishes. Islam strives for the conversion, enslavement or death of all who do not conform to its sadistic and cruel vision of Mankind. Islam cannot be ‘reformed’ in the light of our Western values of humanity and freedom. Were that so, it would no longer be Islam. For its psychopathic and cruel misogyny alone, Islam is an abomination and worthy only of extinction.

Finally, here’s a wakeup call that will chill you to the core. And if fools like Matty are still defending Islam after this, then they will deserve what Islam has in store for them: dhimmitude or death.

So, Matty – get back to us when you’re done with the books and the short story I’ve referenced. I’ve read all of them. The authors are all a great deal smarter and better informed than you are. Be prepared to discuss this material in detail. I am. Or not, as I suspect you’ll come back with a lame recital of leftist talking points rather than any real discussion.

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.
–Will Durant, The Story of Civilization

This is what life under sharia is REALLY like; not only is there no punishment for killing a blasphemer, but it is incumbent upon all Muslims (in a sharia society) to do so.

“An intelligence official interrogating the suspect, identified as Mumtaz Qadri, told The Associated Press that the bearded elite force police commando was boasting about the assassination, saying he was proud to have killed a blasphemer.”

January 3, 2011 – 4:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply Matthew
So … on an individual level, how do you determine if somebody is a member of this party?

Serious question. You reckon that idea is constitutional? Fine – tell us how you implement it (which means legislation) without reference to islam

Meanwhile, I’m not sure the fed’s attempts in the 50′s to ban the communist party were particularly successful. A law was passed, but on the rare occasions that it was applied, the courts seemed to think it was unconstitutional. So I’m not sure your anti-IPP measure is going to hold up well.
*****************************************************************************************
Matthew:
I am a Canadian and in no way do I pretend to be an expert on the American Constitution.
I will offer an opinion, however.
I know your question was for FreedomLovingPatriot, but I’m giving you my 2 cents worth anyway.
Islam is using the term “religion” to supplement it’s real identity which is “political”. More and more people are starting to define it as a “Political Theology”.
It is the only religion in the world that has such a political bent.
True, there has been and still are countries in the world that have a national religion, such as England, (Anglican), France, Spain and Italy (not quite, but historically they could be considered Catholic countries) Germany could be considered Lutheran as well as some of the Scandinavian countries. India mostly Hindu, Japan mostly Shinto, etc.
In none of these countries, at least in a contemporary sense, could you compare the influence of their religious history on their current way of life. At least not to the extreme ridiculous way Muslim countries are influenced by Islam.
If I was a constitutional lawyer, I’d try and argue that Islam has this extra, or over-riding element of being political, (since they have stated over and over again they intend to destroy the West and intend to fly their flag over the capitol cities of Europe and North America).
It might not fly like I’ve stated, but it’s sure as hell worth a try.
As far as the commie thing in the “50s is concerned…although the U.S. certainly believed the threat to be substantial, they were a very, very tiny element in the over all American political picture at that time. And they sure as hell didn’t whine and snivel like the current Islamic groups do in the States. Constitutional or not, if they had, they would have been bitch-slapped back in their hole.
Islam in the States is a totally different can of worms. Plus in those days our Western society didn’t bend over backwards and appease every minority that squeaks about being discriminated against.
How would you decide who was a member of this IPP?
Not sure about that one, but better minds than mine might have an answer…?
There are, I would think, member lists in the Mosques? Get a warrant and go get ‘em.
To be certain, laws would have to be passed to allow this to happen.
How about using the Patriot Act?
That’s already considered un-constitutional, I believe, is it not?
Drastic times demand drastic measures.

Pres. Lincoln stated: “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man.” But several Bible verses are embarrassing to Pres. Obama:
Proverbs 19:10 (NIV): “It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury – how much worse for a slave to rule over princes!”
Also Proverbs 30:22 (NIV) which says that the earth cannot bear up under “a servant who becomes king.”
And Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 (KJV) advises: “let thy words be few…a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words.”
Although Obama is not descended from slaves, he may feel that he’s destined to become a black-slavery avenger.
Or maybe an enslaver of all free citizens!
For some stunning info on Pres. Obama and his fellow subversives, Google “Michelle Obama’s Allah-day,” “Obama Supports Public Depravity,” “David Letterman’s Hate Etc.,” “Un-Americans Fight Franklin Graham” and also “Sandra Bernhard, Larry David, Kathy Griffin, Bill Maher, Sarah Silverman.”
PS – Since Christians are commanded to ask God to send severe judgment on persons who commit and support the worst forms of evil (see I Cor. 5 and note “taken away”), Christians everywhere should constantly pray that the Lord will soon “take away” or at least overthrow all US leaders, including Obama, who continue to sear their conscience and arrogantly trample the God-given rights of the majority including the rights of the unborn. Do we need a second American Revolution?
(Theologically radioactive Harold Camping prophesied that Christ would return during Sep. 1994. Undaunted, con man Camping now predicts it will occur in May of 2011. Since Deut. 18:20-22 requires the death penalty for false prophets, Camping and his deluded groupies deserve inclusion in the above “take away” prayers. False prophets in the OT were stoned to death. Today they are just stoned!)
PPS – For a rare look at the 180-year-old, imported-from-British-crazies endtime escapist belief which has long neutralized millions by promising them an “imminent rapture” off earth – which has diverted them away from being prepared to stand against all enemies, domestic as well as foreign – Google “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” and “Pretrib Rapture – Hidden Facts.”

Can you see the bit in the video where the customer innocently asks for bacon? No? Why do you suppose that is?

Read the story. The customer started it when he couldn’t get whatever it was he ordered. We have no idea what took place after that. The guy’s reaction is clearly stupid, but you’ll notice he’s the only person there freaking out – the rest of the staff drag him away and obviously want no part of his behaviour. He’s a prat. And again, just in case you missed it, we don’t know what happened leading up to that. For all we know, the camera operator said something nasty about his sister.

Didn’t the giles/o’keefe embarrassment teach you anything? You get a partial, edited snippet of something, with a description designed to suit your prejudices, and you swallow it – hook, line and sinker. When you discover that you’ve been lied to you just move on to the next BS story and pretend like nothing happened.

As for the halal part – I don’t see the problem. If that’s what the customers want, then why shouldn’t the proprietor meet that requirement? If you go into a restaurant and they don’t have what you want on the menu, you leave – you don’t go picking a fight with the staff.

In any case, I don’t go to KFC any more. My last KFC experience was like being in the twilight zone – the staff moved around at a shuffle-pace, not speaking to anybody. It was like they were all on ketamine. It was a bit scary.

Since Sharia requires a Muslim to engage in jihad worldwide until all “bear testimony to the fact that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger,” — in other words, to establish Sharia under the rule of a Caliph as the sole system of law worldwide, meaning the overthrow of the US government, or the abrogation of the Constitution — the Constitution DOES interfere with a Muslim’s free exercise of his/her religion.

No, I just got bored with responding to an endless, broken-record stream of pre-digested garbage. Like I said, if something sufficiently ridiculous gets posted I might pop in and respond. But posts which basically consist of “this author reckons islam’s really bad” and a bunch of venom from anti-islam sites just aren’t worth arguing with – I can go read the book and post a point-by-point rebuttal and you lot will just post another “well, THIS book says they’re REALLY bad … so there”. Why bother? It’s not about facts. It’s about finding excuses.

Two questions to consider:

Why is it that this time-immemorial threat only came up on your radar on 9/11? How is it that we’ve survived this long, if the muslim world was so dead-set on wiping us all out for the last 1400 years? Because they definitely had their chances to. Why’d they wait so long?

What do you think you’re going achieve by simply harping on about how a quarter of the world’s population is, like, really bad? What exactly do you propose – just shout at them? Kill them all? Bomb them some more? What?

Matthew, fair enough.
I tend to agree with you. These posts tend to get tedious after a while. You are obviously a bright fellow, as are most that post on here.
I have been corresponding on here (different website) with a Muslim. We are both civil and respectful to each other. And we couldn’t be farther apart about what we both think if we were on different sides of the Milky Way. However, it is stimulating and interesting and I always learn something.

Before I attempt to answer your questions I want to know this one thing.
How can you say it’s not about facts? Every bloody day there are incidents world wide of sinister, crazy, vicious, cruel, brutal attrocities done in the name of this “religion”.
You insult your own intelligence if you deny that. These aren’t antecdotal incidents taken from books. These are FACTS! Sorry to say, but the only ones who attempt to find excuses are individuals like yourself. Again, I can tell by your eloquence on here, you can not be that stupid. (That is a left handed compliment, but is a compliment non the less._
What is the Islamic element, (that CLAIMS to say these individuals do not represent the TRUE Islam), doing to stop this lunacy? Please answer that for me if you can.
P—L—E—A—S—E answer that. As yet, no one has!

#1 ?
First, I am far from a religious scholar or even an Islamic historian. I have read parts of the Koran years ago, but that is about it.
From what I have read, Islam has, since their inception, always attempted to over run non Islamic countries. They were stopped mostly by stronger armies of their day. Apparently, the Industrial Revolution had a big part in stopping the Ottoman empire from taking over Europe in the late 18th early 19th Century. So I don’t think the “waited”, they’ve just kept on trying and failing. Again, I might be wrong about this, but from what I’ve read, I don’t think I am.
I am also aware that the West has to share SOME responsibilty for the current mess because they are not totally blameless due to some questionsble foreign policy in the past.
I also think they (Islam) are getting progressively stronger today because of the rise in the overall population of the world, including, obviously, the Arab countries.

#2 ?
I honestly don’t really know what we are going to acheive by “harping on about (it’s only a fifth) of the world’s population”, but I feel non Muslims should be made aware of what is going on in the world. The sad truth is, the fruits of Islam indicate, to those who are watching world events, that they are a hate-filled killing machine that has made no bones about the fact that they want to dominate the world.
At the risk of insulting your intelligence, where in the past century did we hear retoric like that before? Does Germany in the 1930′s ring a bell?
I must also admit, I don’t have any real answers to make this problem disappear.
I’m not sure anyone does.
I do fear it will culminate in an horrific, violent war, but I pray to God it doesn’t come to that.
I have always believed that war is not the answer, but when you are dealing with a group that wish to die for jihad, and do not have any reasoning in their belief structure, and want to kill innocent people for being the “infidel”, do you have any suggestions.
Respectfully,
Amboyduke

I tend to agree with you. These posts tend to get tedious after a while. You are obviously a bright fellow, as are most that post on here.

Oh, gosh (blushes)

How can you say it’s not about facts? Every bloody day there are incidents world wide of sinister, crazy, vicious, cruel, brutal attrocities done in the name of this “religion”.”

Every day there are incidents world wide of sinister, crazy atrocities done in the name of anything you decide to pick as a category. The world is a very, very big place. At any given instant, somebody (probably several people) are being attacked, beaten, mugged, raped, shot. If you pick on JUST one category (whatever it might be) you can easily conclude that your category is somehow the problem. If it happens to be a category of people that you’ve convinced yourself are threatening you, that picture can be very compelling. It’s called “confirmation bias”. You see dangerous muslims because you’re scared of them, and because there happens to be a very eager audience for those stories, so people write them (frequently dishonestly). But it all you ever read were stories about violence taking place in china, you’d be terrified of chinese people (another quarter of the world). It would be fairly easy to collect and propagated just news stories that convinced readers that russians are all racist, criminal psychopaths.

These aren’t antecdotal incidents taken from books

Actually, most of the examples people post here are just anecdotal.

Let’s be serious for a minute. There are obviously some very serious problems in most (but not all) of the muslim world right now. I don’t think the problems are religious, they’re political. Those countries are the arse-end of the world, bits of left-over empires frozen in time. These are countries that were run by external interests for decades because those interests wanted what they had (usually oil, sometimes territory). Saudi arabia only exists because britain created it and gave it to a loyal supporter (the saudis) to rule in return for favorable trade. From that point forward, saudi arabia was screwed unless it had some sort of revolution. Lebanon? Created by france as a christian enclave – a last grab at empire (the british almost didn’t let them have it – they could see where that was heading). Iraq? Invented by the british and french and given to another group of dictators. They didn’t give a damn about who lived there – they just jammed several very different religious/ethnic groups into one country, stuck a king on top of it and said “that’s your lot”. Israel is just the latest in a long line of external decisions. It’s pretty much the same story throughout – external powers imposed a local dictator to keep order so we could get on with business. Meanwhile, the rest of the world started moving toward democracy. The middle-east is still working with medieval political systems, because those are the political systems the west (mostly britain) put there. The ones that DID attempt to revolt grabbed onto socialism and ended up right back in the frying pan (e.g. libya). On the few occasions that democracy broke out, outsiders found it inconvenient and nixed it (see mossadeq and operation ajax). It’s not a pretty picture.

As long as the middle-eastern populations kept quiet and their dictator leaders did business on peaceful terms, nobody really gave a damn about middle-eastern domestic affairs, or what happened to their populations. We defended israel, made sure the oil got through and left the rest of it to its devices. Then one day a few freaks from saudi arabia bring down some buildings in new york and everyone’s like “holy crap – where did THAT come from?”.

I honestly don’t understand how anyone thought the middle east was going to end well. The rest of the world gets universal education, health care, welfare systems, bills of rights, elections, democracy, the rule of law, and the middle-east is stuck with corrupt, occasionally violent illegitimate monarchies. Some of those are slowly getting their act together and reforming – slowly – but it’s been a while coming. Sooner or later that place was going to start to export a threat. There is no thumb big enough to keep egypt or iran under. Or iraq, now.

I don’t say all of this to make anyone feel sorry for muslims or arabs – I’m just trying to explain why that part of the world is so screwed up and why it’s not necessarily the conscious choice of the people who live there. hundreds of millions of people had no say in their political arrangements, which tended to work out pretty crap for them. They’re woefully uneducated, usually even in their own freakin’ language (which is sometimes not even the language that their political leaders use for business or administration – see algeria). Their leaders fought amongst themselves with impunity for decades, with debt-funded weapons from abroad (iraq? iran? lebanon?). THAT is what needs to be fixed. You can convert them all to protestantism tomorrow and the middle-east will still be a moving violation.

Until we deal with the politics, any expression of religion that comes from those parts of the world is going to be twisted. They’re not violent because they’re muslim – they’re just violent while being muslim.

What is the Islamic element, (that CLAIMS to say these individuals do not represent the TRUE Islam), doing to stop this lunacy? Please answer that for me if you can.

Honestly, I don’t know what muslim leaders in australia can do about reforming religion in morocco. But my impression is that religious leaders in australia are (almost) entirely unified in wanting to prevent extremism from getting a foothold here. There are a couple of right nut-jobs, but only a couple. They get all the attention, though. I think that’s the best anyone can do. If there’s going to be a muslim reformation, it’ll start somewhere like australia or the US (or possibly indonesia), because it’s away from the suppression of the middle-eastern political scene.

Islam isn’t like the catholic church. There’s no hierarchy and there’s no pope. And it’s not even a single religion. It’s a flotilla without rudders – kind of hard to steer.“From what I have read, Islam has, since their inception, always attempted to over run non Islamic countries.”

But that’s what everyone was doing. Most of the countries you see on the map in europe today didn’t even exist a couple of hundred years ago. And what do you think britian was doing in india – bringing democracy? (snort). France in south-east asia? Spain in south america? We currently live in a remarkable and rare period of stability and peace. Just for a laugh, go look up how many empires have invaded egypt (or poland/finland, for that matter).

“They were stopped mostly by stronger armies of their day.”

Well yes, by definition. If they were stopped, they were stopped by stronger armies. They weren’t always stopped, though.

Apparently, the Industrial Revolution had a big part in stopping the Ottoman empire from taking over Europe in the late 18th early 19th Century. So I don’t think the “waited”

Go get a copy of “empires of the sand”, by the karshes. The last 250 years (with a brief break lately) have been a story of britain, france, the central powers (austrians, germans) russia and the ottoman empire taking swipes at each other, usually with the balkans and egypt getting in the way. They were all up for it. On average, the british were probably the most concerned with stability – but only as long as they liked the terms. All of those protagonists have engaged in cretinous adventurism during the 18th and 19th centuries. By the 18th century, the ottomans were actually the weakest of the lot – they rarely did anything without an ally, and ended up losing something every time they tried it on.

I also think they (Islam) are getting progressively stronger today because of the rise in the overall population of the world, including, obviously, the Arab countries.

It’s called “chickens coming home to roost”. The spread of cheap weapons and technology means that you no longer have to be a nation-state to be able to do damage to somebody.

“At the risk of insulting your intelligence, where in the past century did we hear retoric like that before? Does Germany in the 1930′s ring a bell?”

But it’s not comparable. Germany was a specific political entity, with borders and identifiable leaders. It was possible (however reasonable) to identify all germans as being part of the problem. Ok, lots of other europeans joined in (some more eagerly than others), but we’re still not talking about outlawing and fighting everyone who happens to hold to a particular faith, whoever or wherever they might be. The trouble is that so many people are so darn keen to declare war on a huge group of people who mostly aren’t our enemies. When we do that, they BECOME our enemies. If we really do decide to go to war on a quarter of the world “just in case”, it’s going to cost us all a heck of a lot – and not only is it ethically wrong, it also won’t work.

I must also admit, I don’t have any real answers to make this problem disappear. I’m not sure anyone does.

Middle-east political reform. Proper education. Competent arab/african governments. Economic growth. It won’t disappear overnight, but it will change the way arabs see the world. It’s actually non-negotiable anyway, because until that part of the world joins political modernity, the problem will just repeat.

I do fear it will culminate in an horrific, violent war, but I pray to God it doesn’t come to that.

What – you mean other than the two we’ve got now?

I have always believed that war is not the answer, but when you are dealing with a group that wish to die for jihad, and do not have any reasoning in their belief structure, and want to kill innocent people for being the “infidel”, do you have any suggestions.

There really aren’t very many of those people. If there were, we’d all be dead.

Sharia: it really is an innocuous legal system. And the men imposing it by force are reasonable guys amenable to negotiation! Why, they can be converted to liberal values simply by well-intentioned acts on the part of the Western powers. Yesirree. I feel much better now having convinced myself of that:

Residents of the southern Somali town of Jowhar said Saturday that the al-Shabab insurgents threatened to whip, imprison or execute anyone found breaking the recent edicts.

Resident Hussein Ali says he will no longer greet women he knows for fear of punishment.

Student Hamdi Osman says gunmen are searching buses for improperly dressed women or women traveling alone. She says she was once beaten for wearing Somali traditional dress instead of the long, shapeless black robes favored by the fighters.

The insurgents have already banned women from working in public, leaving many families completely destitute.

How morally upright of us to leave Somali women living under brutal oppression!

And when they come to the U.S., we most definitely should allow that oppression to continue unchecked, as Sharia arrives with them on American soil. Wouldn’t want to interfere with a quaint native custom!

Fiqh is not the correct term for a school of law. Rather, you’re looking for Madh’hab. Fiqh is actually the interpretation of the sources (i.e. Quran, Sunna, and the community)

This brings me to mThe real problem with banning Shari’a, or claiming the banning of Shari’a unconstitutional, is it shows how both non-Muslims and Muslims misunderstand what Shari’a is. Shari’a is truth with a capital T (for Muslims, of course). As our original poster briefly acknowledged, Shari’a is God’s incontrovertible law. However, it is also unapproachable. Shari’a is supposed to be what Muslims approach, but never fully realize. According to the Quran, no fallible man has Shari’a, only fiqh (the interpretations of the sources in apporaching Shari’a).

I think this is importante, because Muslims see this debate as an attack directly against God, and non-Muslims see an attack against democracy. Fiqh is very much democratic, because interpretation is a subjective process. I do agree the the constitution is the supreme law of the land, I’m not refuting that. I’m simply trying to display some commonalities between the debaters, and hopefully some gaps can be bridged.

–”Every day there are incidents world wide of sinister, crazy atrocities done in the name of anything you decide to pick as a category. The world is a very, very big place. At any given instant, somebody (probably several people) are being attacked, beaten, mugged, raped, shot….it happens to be a category of people that you’ve convinced yourself are threatening you, that picture can be very compelling…… But it all you ever read were stories about violence taking place in china, you’d be terrified of chinese people….etc. etc.”
Not at all a valid comparison. Violence world wide is nothing new. Let’s call it “generic” violence. Man’s inhumanity to man. Islamic violence is targeted to and focused against the entire world that is not Islam. They are motivated by a crazy world dominating mindset…Matthew, you’ve GOT TO SEE THAT AS A FACT! Their acts of violence are clearly orchestrated and driven by a religio-political agenda. They even state this time and time again.
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–”Let’s be serious for a minute. There are obviously some very serious problems in most (but not all) of the muslim world right now…. I don’t think the problems are religious, they’re political. (A dangerous combination of the 2) Those countries are the arse-end of the world, bits of left-over empires frozen in time. These are countries that were run by external interests for decades because those interests wanted what they had (usually oil, sometimes territory). Saudi arabia only exists because britain created it and gave it to a loyal supporter (the saudis) to rule in return for favorable trade. didn’t let them have it – they could see where that was heading). Iraq? Invented by the british and french and given to another group of dictators. They didn’t give a damn about who lived there – they just jammed several very different religious/ethnic groups into one country, stuck a king on top of it and said “that’s your lot”.to revolt grabbed onto socialism and ended up right back in the frying pan (e.g. libya). On the few occasions that democracy broke out, outsiders found it inconvenient and nixed it Until we deal with the politics, any expression of religion that comes from those parts of the world is going to be twisted. They’re not violent because they’re muslim – they’re just violent while being muslim.”
These are indeed all valid points. Your more indepth description is what I was referring to in my comment “I am also aware that the West has to share SOME responsibilty for the current mess because they are not totally blameless due to some questionsble foreign policy in the past.”
In my opinion none of these facts excuse or are the reason for their religious fanatacism. They have been doing this same crap for centuries. The old Arab saying…
“its me against my brother, its my brother and me against my cousin, its me, my brother and cousin against the world…!” How can you reason with people who think like that?
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What is the Islamic element, (that CLAIMS to say these individuals do not represent the TRUE Islam), doing to stop this lunacy? Please answer that for me if you can.
“Honestly, I don’t know what muslim leaders in australia can do about reforming religion in morocco.”
They can rally and organize WORLD WIDE with all the other “moderates” and join forces to work on a solution to their problem. Is there an easy pat answer? Not at all. But there must be a solution amongst these “moderates” if they truly want to fight the radicals.
I have no answer personally. Greater minds than mine will have to come up with one.
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“If there’s going to be a muslim reformation, it’ll start somewhere like australia or the US (or possibly indonesia), because it’s away from the suppression of the middle-eastern political scene.”
I hope you’re right, but I’m pretty damned cynical. The recent assasination of Tazeer in Pakistan with the crowds cheering the assasin and the lawyers saying they will defend the assasin for free…great move in the right direction. (pardon my sarcasm…)
All because a “Christian” woman brought water to thirsty Muslims and her hands touched the water!! This is mental illness, Matthew, on a global scale. Nothing else. You can’t reason with lunatics. I do mean mental illness!
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“Islam isn’t like the catholic church. There’s no hierarchy and there’s no pope. And it’s not even a single religion. It’s a flotilla without rudders – kind of hard to steer.”
I couldn’t agree more. The problem with an organization like you described is that anything goes. How many Islamic sub-groups are there? 60/70? Each bunch with their own slant…talk about chaos!
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“But that’s what everyone was doing. Most of the countries you see on the map in europe today didn’t even exist a couple of hundred years ago. And what do you think britian was doing in india – bringing democracy? (snort). France in south-east asia? Spain in south america? We currently live in a remarkable and rare period of stability and peace. Just for a laugh, go look up how many empires have invaded egypt (or poland/finland, for that matter).” Again, you are right as rain.
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“Go get a copy of “empires of the sand”, by the karshes…. It’s called “chickens coming home to roost”. The spread of cheap weapons and technology means that you no longer have to be a nation-state to be able to do damage to somebody.”
I’ve read it.
*********
“At the risk of insulting your intelligence, where in the past century did we hear retoric like that before? Does Germany in the 1930′s ring a bell?”
“But it’s not comparable. Germany was a specific political entity, with borders and identifiable leaders. It was possible (however reasonable) to identify all germans as being part of the problem….”
It totally is comparable. The point isn’t who or how they want to take over the world. The point is that they WANT to. And don’t kid yourself. The Germans of the 1930′s supported Hitler more than they want to admit.
My aunt, born in Canada in the early 20th century, admitted to me that she was taught as a little girl, (confirmation age) in a Canadian Lutheran Church to hate the Jews for killing Christ!! She never really liked the Jews all of her life. Martin Luther was the biggest anti-semite in German history till Adolf made the scene.
Islam is as much political as religious anyway.
*********
Middle-east political reform. Proper education. Competent arab/african governments. Economic growth. It won’t disappear overnight, but it will change the way arabs see the world. It’s actually non-negotiable anyway, because until that part of the world joins political modernity, the problem will just repeat.
They don’t want to join political modernity. The Taliban is gaining strength and they want to revert rather than progress.
********
I do fear it will culminate in an horrific, violent war, but I pray to God it doesn’t come to that.
“What – you mean other than the two we’ve got now?”
I meant a global conflagration.
********
I guess we can agree to disagree…we’ll see what happens. It’s bound to be interesting.

“Not at all a valid comparison. Violence world wide is nothing new. Let’s call it “generic” violence. Man’s inhumanity to man. Islamic violence is targeted to and focused against the entire world that is not Islam. They are motivated by a crazy world dominating mindset…Matthew, you’ve GOT TO SEE THAT AS A FACT! Their acts of violence are clearly orchestrated and driven by a religio-political agenda. They even state this time and time again.”

“They” don’t “all” do anything. A small number of them, with motivations all their own, claim to speak for 1.5 billion people, and our media just laps it up unquestioningly and makes them out to be influential leaders, rather that just violent self-interested thugs who shout. They talk about religion, but I don’t believe it – they just want stuff, like every other violent thug that came before them.

“In my opinion none of these facts excuse or are the reason for their religious fanatacism. They have been doing this same crap for centuries. The old Arab saying…
“its me against my brother, its my brother and me against my cousin, its me, my brother and cousin against the world…!” How can you reason with people who think like that?

Here are some other old sayings:

- Kill ‘em all and let god sort ‘em out.
- You can take my gun, from my cold, dead hands.
- Happiness is a warm gun.
- Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.

How can you reason with people like that? Moral: don’t put too much stock in old sayings.

They can rally and organize WORLD WIDE with all the other “moderates” and join forces to work on a solution to their problem. Is there an easy pat answer? Not at all. But there must be a solution amongst these “moderates” if they truly want to fight the radicals.

It sounds like a good idea. But the saudis will still give millions to freaks, and I don’t think sudanese militia are going to be all that fussed about what a cleric from melbourne thinks. And when china or russia want african resources, they’ll still back whoever can get them access for the best price (hey – that’s what we did).

I have no answer personally. Greater minds than mine will have to come up with one.

Yep. Me too.

I hope you’re right, but I’m pretty damned cynical. The recent assasination of Tazeer in Pakistan with the crowds cheering the assasin and the lawyers saying they will defend the assasin for free…great move in the right direction. (pardon my sarcasm…)

Pakistan has a lot of serious problems. But I do think it’s a minority. Look at the people that pakistanis actually elect, when given a chance – generally they’re reformist moderates. That’s what the majority wants. A violent minority has other ideas. Keep in mind that this is a country with appallingly bad education levels and living standards, and a political class that has historically done quite well by blaming everything on outsiders and invoking endless war. The result is what you see. Indonesia and turkey are far more moderate, and (incidentally) there are more muslims living in the relatively (peaceful) india than there are in pakistan.

All because a “Christian” woman brought water to thirsty Muslims and her hands touched the water!! This is mental illness, Matthew, on a global scale. Nothing else. You can’t reason with lunatics. I do mean mental illness!

Actually, my take on it is that it’s a personal feud. Most of those sorts of accusations are just score-settling – sort of like calling someone a witch in the old days. That doesn’t make it any better, I know.

I couldn’t agree more. The problem with an organization like you described is that anything goes. How many Islamic sub-groups are there? 60/70? Each bunch with their own slant…talk about chaos!

No idea. And I don’t think the “slant” is what’s important. Theology (IMHO) always comes second to identity and power. No religious leader in history has ever said “hey, that sect over there is just like ours – you should all go follow THAT guy!”

It totally is comparable. The point isn’t who or how they want to take over the world. The point is that they WANT to. And don’t kid yourself. The Germans of the 1930′s supported Hitler more than they want to admit.

I’m going to dodge that one. I think a lot of europeans supported hitler more than they (now) want to admit. What I was getting at is that the threat from hitler was much more clearly defined (and, IMHO, serious) than a bunch of largely independent creeps who have to skulk in the shadows, and who don’t have much more in common than their nominal religion and financing networks. It’s a different threat. Most muslims don’t want a fight – if we declare war on them, then they will. Think “tar baby”.

Islam is as much political as religious anyway.

And US-style evangelical christianity isn’t? Southern baptists aren’t political? The catholic church isn’t political? Hmmf! Look at the history of britain – ALL religion is political.

They don’t want to join political modernity. The Taliban is gaining strength and they want to revert rather than progress.

The taliban is only gaining strength by force. The rest of the country (which doesn’t particularly like them) is also muslim, remember. And don’t have any illusions – the taliban grabbed power (with pakistan’s backing) by first slaughtering everyone who might have stood up to them. They weren’t exactly the people’s choice.

I meant a global conflagration.

Nah. Ain’t gonna happen. Look at what we’re fighting – they can’t attack anything they can’t walk up to and kick. They don’t have the numbers or technology. Oh … and they’re losing.

I guess we can agree to disagree…we’ll see what happens. It’s bound to be interesting.

I think the whole muslim scare is going to end with a whimper. Probably right about the time that something else big comes along to catch the media’s interest.

Wow…I really enjoyed this debate! Even though I agree with Van Grungy and Zombie, it was good to read through all the comments and see the different sides. I would like to recommend the book “Eurabia” by Bat Ye’or to those who don’t think that radical Islam is a threat. Also I think the topic of demographics, where they (Muslims) have many wives and many children and in the U.S. abortion is legal, and 1-2 child families are becoming considered “big” families, should be considered a factor. More reason to defend our way of life and from those who hate it.

thinking or thoughts contrary to a life threatening organization of any kind such as the muslim promoting advocates of mohammed the false prophet do not belong in this country and only because of the ‘believe or die law’ of their non sacred book the ;non care on’ they should be convinced in every possible way to return to their own free county where they cut each others head off their shoulders. And because their seemingly sacred book the ‘un care on’teaches them to kill those of us who in no way accept such orders from the devil such as chopping off someones head because they do not believe as we they should use the teachings of their sacred book that promotes murder even mass murder against their own beloved friends relatives and people. and those muslim males not to identify them with true men are the epitome of what in america is called a male chauvinistic swine I do not like to use the word pig it is too harsh a comarison even though the word is appropriate for those poor excuses for real men. bye

We already have our own form of Sharia in America. Women are not recognized by the Constitution or the courts according to Antone Scailia. It it the corruption of the laws that has led us to converge on Washington on Mothers Day, May 8th for the Million Moms March.
We are sick and tired of these “she belongs to me, so I can do what I want with her” politicians. Women are leading the revolution in America, and we are not going to be owned anymore. Million Moms March on Washington. Mothers Day May 8.

How can it be “unconstitutional” to declare that only American Law apply in American states?! Is this Judge Vicky trying to put herself out of her job (as a law-saleswoman?)! Because of her stance, other countries may eventually be able to over-rule even HER own decisions! How retarded can you be to take such a stance?!

These people who mention Sharia law into the U.S. are like an invasion of cockroaches. They need to take their ideas back to their own places from whence they fled and those who support them. I clearly despise their polluting this government with their ideas. What were they running from when they came here. They need to keep the laws of this land or get out.

Take your Sharia Law and go from whence you came. Our law is based on Truth here in this country. You weak minded people are digging your own graves.
This question about sharia law in this country should never have come up.

Nice job on the last scene. Although i thought at first that the old lady was “Death” because the wreckage of the car looks like a scythe (yeah… had to go look in an English dictionary on how to translate that one…)

Interestingly, Lara, you do not have the same things to say to Padma down below. My language in no way resembles hers, and yet your charge of ‘anger’ and ‘cynicism’ is directed at my comments, without any basis or reasonable justification.